terror comes creep

Seven

I CHECKED MY WATCH WHICH SAID IT WAS FIVE AFTER two. The moonlight still flooded the landscape, the air was just a little crisper. Sylvia stood beside the station wagon, the gold lame glowing softly along with her. She wasn’t shivering any more.

“Danny, lover,” she said. “I don’t want to go back inside that house—not now I know about that pigpen and—”

“You have to go back, honey-chile,” I said patiently. “For the girls’ sake anyway. If you don’t come back, Tolvar and the others will get worried—they might panic and do something to the girls. You have to show up there.”

“What are you going to do about the body?” she said. “You can’t just leave it there!”

“I called the gendarmes once and they figure it as a

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lousy practical joke,” I said. ⁴⁴If I try to tell them a second time there’s a body in that pen, they’ll most likely have me committed!”

“You have to do something!”

“Check,” I said. “I’m working on it. You just try and act as if nothing’s happened. I’ll come back through the day and maybe have a concrete idea of how to handle it. Just don’t worry, honey-chile.”

“O.K., Danny,” she smiled up at me. “Whatever you say. I don’t mind being kissed by a knight with his armor on!”

I kissed her goodbye over a brief five-minute period, then walked across the road and got into my car. I lit a cigarette and waited until the station wagon moved off along the road and turned in along the tracks to the farmhouse.

Another half-hour and I’d be back at the hotel comfortably in bed, I figured, and it was a welcome prospect —I reached out to turn on the ignition and at the same moment the cold rim of a gun muzzle bored into the back of my neck.

“You got a right to relax, you been a busy Boyd!” a clipped voice said close to my ear. “Just don’t move, huh? I got a nervous finger.”

“I’ve got a nervous body,” I said. “You should worry about a finger!”

“It’s you got to worry about the finger,” Tolvar said amiably. His free hand lifted the Magnum out of the harness in a routine which was getting to be monotonous. “Cheez!” he said. “How many guns you got?”

“Not enough—if I keep losing them to you the way I am lately,” I said. “How long have you been in the back of the car?”

“Thirty minutes, maybe more,” he said. “I was getting kind of cramped on the floor back there. You must have made a score with nursie, huh, you were away so long?” “She’s just a nice kid,” I said easily.

“Hot-blooded underneath the cool freeze she gives

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you,” he said enthusiastically. “I go for a dame like that —more kicks that way. Maybe i’ll give her a run after you’re out of circulation.”

That was a conjecture, like they say in television courtrooms, and I let it ride—either way there was nothing in it for me.

“You’re the kind of guy who don’t learn, Boyd,” he ' said after a few seconds’ silence. “Last time we met, I told you to lay off the Hazelton family, but you didn’t take the hint. Now it’s got so you’re embarrassing people.”

“Look,” I said wearily, “like it’s late, like I’m tired, like I know you’re a real tough Joe—so save the tough dialogue for impressing the clients, huh? What happens now—you slug me again?”

“You’re going out of circulation, Boyd,” he said easily —and I thought that maybe his worst character trait was that you couldn’t annoy him—not with words anyway.

“You’re back on that old hat dialogue again,” I said. “I’m going out of circulation—what the hell does that mean? You figure I’m a newspaper—or a pint of blood?” “Like when you got to go, you got to,” he said amiably. “It’s the end of the line—you wind up in the obituary notices that nobody even reads.”

“You didn’t call it the big sleep, anyway,” I said. “1 guess that’s something.”

“Be my guest,” he said. “You can start the motor now, Boyd—we’ll get it finished with, huh?”

“That private eye’s license you’ve got,” I said, “it maybe allows you to get away with killing somebody in self-defense if you got a minimum of six eye-witnesses to swear it was self-defense; but nobody gets away with murder.”

“Start the motor!” He jabbed the gun muzzle hard into my neck as a persuader. “You want me to bust out

crying?”

“I’ll put it another way,” I said patiently. “No hard,

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two-syllable words that you won’t understand. We both make the same kind of living out of the same racket. I never had a client yet who could pay the kind of money I'd want to commit murder—and neither have you. So why all the build-up? You want to scare me—O.K., I’m scared. Now what?”

“You start the motor and drive—or I slug you and drive myself,” he said. “Which way will you have it?” I started the motor and drove the car out onto the road again, heading back toward Providence.

“That’s better,” Tolvar said. “Just keep on driving and we’ll get along fine.”

“I’d like that,” I said earnestly. “Us beatniks warn nothing better than to communicate—a free exchange of souls. Man! That’s when id digs id and ego digs ego!” “I figure I will slug you and drive myself,” Tolvar said seriously. “Listening to that kind of jive sours my stomach!”

“Just trying to find a common meeting-ground,” I said. “If I light a cigarette will it make you nervous?”

“Nothing makes me nervous,” he said. “It’s only that finger of mine gets a nervous twitch now and then. If you’re real careful with the smoke, I guess the finger won’t worry.”

I got the pack out of my coat pocket slowly, and slid a cigarette into my mouth, and lit it from the lighter on the dash.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “Or is that a secret between you and the wheels?”

“We’ll keep it for a surprise,” he said. He pulled a sudden switch in the conversation. “Where were you and nursie all that time out back of the farmhouse?” “In the barn,” I said.

“Pete checked the bam,” he grunted. “Try again.” “He checked the bam all right,” I said. “But not the hayloft.”

“Yeah?” he chuckled throatily. “I bet you had yourself a time up there—you sure didn’t hurry.”

“Us beats were just communicating/’ I said.

“You got a new word for it—I got to remember that!” he said. “ ‘Doll, why don’t we communicate?* Sounds kind of refined, don’t it? Even the broads go for refinement. How did you come to latch onto the West dame tonight?”

“Lucky break,” I said, “or I figured it was until you popped up from the back seat. I registered at the hotel, walked down into the lobby looking for a drink—and there she was, looking for a drink. It kind of developed from there.”

“You need to do better,” he said dryly. “Try again.” “It’s a fact,” I said. “You think she’d have walked back into the house tonight if she had any idea what’s going on? Or maybe she does, huh? She’s in it with the rest of you and she was put up as bait for me tonight?” We came into an outer speed zone and I eased my foot off the gas pedal.

“What now?” I asked him. “This is Providence.” “Yeah,” he sounded surprised. “So it is—O.K., turn round and head back.”

“You’re serious?”

“Sure—I like to drive at night—I got insomnia!”

I slowed the car, made a U-tum and headed back the way we’d come. Tolvar’s gun was still firm against the back of my neck. I drove for maybe ten minutes in silence, trying to figure the point of the ride, and giving up.

“How much do you know about this caper?” I asked him when we were maybe three minutes away from the farm.

“More than you, pal,” he said.

“You know somebody’s been killed already?” I said. “You know what you’re mixed up in—the body’s buried in one of the pigpens right now!”

“Wrong, pal,” he said easily. “Not now—it used to be, but while we’ve been riding, that cadaver’s been shifted.”

“I hope they’re paying you enough to compensate for fifteen to twenty years in Sing Sing,” I said.

“They’re paying enough,” his voice got enthusiastic. “This is the one big caper I’ve been looking for the last ten years, Boyd, and there’s no chance of it going wrong.”

“A lot of guys have said that.”

“Ten lousy years,” he said. “A private eye with a rathole for an office and clients who were right at home the moment they walked in the door! A good week I pick up maybe a couple of hundred bucks, a bad week I don’t make the rent. More bad weeks than good, and a guy’s getting older all the time. Then—out of nowhere—Blooey! The big caper—bingo, and it’s all over. I quit with enough money to live the way I always wanted. That’s the deal, Boyd, and you tell me there’s six more cadavers I don’t know about and it makes no difference.”

“You sure had a hard life,” I said. “It’s a shame you lived so long already!”

“Turn in through the gates,” he said coldly. “Halfway down the tracks, cut the motor and let her roll until I tell you stop—and cut the headlights at the same time.” I did as I was told. Halfway down the tracks, I cut the motor and the lights. The car rolled for another fifty yards before Tolvar said to stop.

“O.K.,” he said once we stopped. “Lie down on the seat!”

“What the heU—”

“You want to do it the hard way again?”

So I lay down on the front seat. Maybe a minute later, I heard the trunk being opened, then there were a couple of thuds and the clunk as the lid was snapped shut again. None of the car doors had been opened so Tolvar was still inside the car—and someone else had opened the trunk.

“You can straighten up now,” Tolvar said. “Turn the car around facing the gates, but no lights.” The gun

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pressed against the back of my neck again. “Move it, Boyd, I’m losing sleep!”

I did as I was told—started the motor and swung the car in a tight U-turn, then stopped facing the gates. The rear door slammed and a split-second later, Tolvar stood beside the driving window, the gun pointed at my face.

“Thanks for the ride, pal,” he said. “It sure cured my insomnia.”

“So what do I do now—sing you a lullaby?” I asked. “You do whatever you want, pal,” he said genially. “Drive to New York—California for all I give a damn.” “I just drive away,” I repeated. “All that jazz about when you got to go?”

“Strictly for laughs,” he said. “Like that gag of yours about a body being buried here. You got a great imagination, Boyd, you should’ve been a pimp!”

‘Thanks,” I said.

“Well—beat it!” he said impatiendy. “You figure I want to stay here all night?”

“I’m going,” I said. “I just want to light a cigarette first.”

“Can’t you drive one-handed any more?”

“Five seconds,” I said patiently.

I took the pack out of my pocket slowly, the cigarette out of the pack even more slowly. Tolvar was irritating me if he figured I was so dumb I couldn’t see what was coming.

They’d waited until Sylvia had got inside the house and Tolvar had taken me joy-riding. Then they dug the body out of the pigpen, and when we came back, one of them put it into the trunk of the car. So now as I drove away, Tolvar would shoot carefully and kill me. He’d rather let me drive away first because there was less to go wrong. Then they’d call the cops and say they heard a prowler, came out and saw me driving away—shot and accidently killed me.

It would all be there for the cops—the freshly dug pigpen, the body in the trunk. I’d be the guy who came

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back to get rid of the evidence. Tolvar letting me drive away was guaranteeing his bet. If he killed me first, then put me in the car, there might be just one little thing about it the cops figured didn’t look right—this way he couldn’t miss.

I struck a match to the tip of the cigarette and inhaled deeply.

“Get going before I change my mind and take off some more of that pretty face of yours!” Tolvar said savagely.

I tossed the dead match out the window and started the motor.

“So long, slob!” Tolvar said contemptuously.

I selected reverse and stamped on the gas pedal, and as the car shot backward suddenly flicked the headlights onto full beam. The car rocketed back about fifty feet before I braked and put it into drive.

Tolvar was spotlighted in the glare of the headlights. I’d gotten him flatfooted and he was just recovering, swinging around to face the car. I trod on the gas pedal again and the car leaped forward, cutting down the distance between us fast. He threw one arm up to shield his eyes from the glare, while the gun in his other hand swung upward in a quick arc.

I kept my foot hard on the gas pedal, knowing I wasn’t going to make it before he got in one shot, at least. For an eternity spread over one full second, I was wondering if I’d see the windshield glass shatter before the slug smacked into my face.

He never did fire that shot—I wondered afterward if he figured me for such a slob, he thought I was only worried about getting past him along the tracks to the road.

The moment before impact I heard a thin scream, then there was the slight thump and a dark shape hurtled sideways and up into the air. I stamped on the brakes, freed them and swung the car in a tight circle, then braked again so the car came to a squealing halt, facing

69

the farmhouse. I left the motor running in neutral and the headlights on.

There was a still, shapeless heap on the ground about forty feet away, and I thought I saw something move quickly just outside the effective range of the headlights.

I jumped out of the car and ran toward him.

Tolvar, close-up, looked like a rag doll ready for the trashcan. His neck had snapped in a messy kind of way, among a lot of other damage; but I didn’t have time to detail it. All 1 wanted from him was my gun. His own gun could be anywhere on the farm depending on its velocity when it left his hand at the moment of impact.

I dragged open his coat and ran my hands frantically over his torso without finding the gun. You can’t tuck a Magnum down your sock—he just didn’t have it on him.

I heard the hammering sound as somebody fired and the slug smacked into the earth about six inches from Tolvar’s head. With one bound, Boyd was on his way, zigzagging back toward the car. I heard two more shots fired before I made the car, and one of the slugs went past my head so close, my brains could’ve reached out and shook hands with it.

Selector to drive, headlights off and hope to hell the sudden absence of brilliant light throws his eyeballs out for a few seconds, another tight turn—and I sat hunched over the wheel, my naked spine quivering in anticipation until I reached the gates and made a squealing turn onto the road in the direction of Providence again.

It was some time later when I nearly didn’t make a sharp lefthand curve that I looked at the speedometer and saw it was steady on 80 m.p.h. I drove the rest of the way into Providence at a steady 35 after that.

My watch said five of four when I parked by the hotel, and I felt if ever a guy deserved his sleep right , then, it was me. Getting out of the car, I glanced casually ] at the back seat, and there was the Magnum on the seat looking right back at me.

It figured—when Tolvar had told me to drive off, he’d

been sure I wasn’t going very far before he kiUed me. So he could leave the Magnum inside the car and pick it up afterwards. I grabbed the gun and slid it into the harness. If I’d thought about it before—the gun being left in the car when Tolvar got out—it could have saved a hell of a lot of violent exercise.

Ten more minutes and I was in my hotel room, in bed —and fast asleep. Sure, I know, but that’s what violent exercise can do to any guy—putrify his reasoning capabilities.

I WOKE UP AROUND ELEVEN, LIFTED THE PHONE AND told room service to send up some coffee and two raw eggs; then I called room service beverages and said to send up a double Scotch.

By the time they’d delivered, I was out of bed with a robe draped around my aching muscles. I slid the eggs into the Scotch, closed my eyes and drank the lot down in one gulp. My stomach would’ve yelled “Uncle!” but it had nothing left over for yelling.

I drank some of the coffee quickly and lit a cigarette just as a loud knock sounded on the door. Maybe room service gave a bonus to raw egg and whisky drinkers? I opened the door to find out I was wrong—two tall, hefty characters stood there with cop written all over them.

“Mr. Boyd?” the nearest guy said.

“Sure,” I nodded. “Something wrong?”

“Police,” he said. “You mind if we come in?”

“Help yourself,” I said politely.

They sat down heavily and looked at me while I poured myself another cup of coffee.

“I’m Sergeant Tighe,” the blond one said. “And this is Detective Karnak.”

“You already know me, obviously,” 1 said. “What’s it all about?”

Tighe thumbed through his notebook, quoted my license plates number, and I agreed they did belong to my car.

“Would you account for your movements last night, Mr. Boyd?” he asked in a bored, remote voice.

“I guess so,” I said. “But—” Then I didn’t need to ask him why. It belted me over the head with more force than even Tolvar could have used. Like I said—violent exercise can make a moron out of a guy like me, even!

There was just one thing I’d forgotten last night when I drove away from the farm—that body was still in the trunk!

“You registered at the desk around eight-thirty last night,” Tighe said patiently. “Maybe you’d like to take it from there?”

“I went out to Newport for dinner,” I said. “To the seafood place—Cristy’s. Then I came back into Providence afterward, drove my girl friend home, came back to the hotel. I guess that’s about it.”

“What time did you get back?”

The night clerk had seen me—I’d had to pick up my room key. “Around 4:00 a.m.” I said.

“What time did you leave Newport?”

“Around ten-thirty, I’d say.”

“Five and a half hours driving?” He raised his eyebrows a fraction. “Where does your girl friend live— north of Boston some place?”

I tried a grin. “We were a long time saying good night.”

“Where does she live exactiy?” There was no answering grin.

“On a farm about twenty miles out.” I gave him the name and location.

“What time did you leave her to return to Providence?” 72

“Just after three.”

“It took an hour to drive twenty miles?”

“I was in no hurry.”

“Before—or after it happened?”

“What happened?”

Tighe’s face was stony. “You’re way out of luck, Boyd—there was a witness.”

“To what?”

“You’d better get dressed,” he said. “Come with us. You killed him but I guess you know that already?”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Push it all you want,” he sighed gently. “Hit-and-run. There was a witness saw it happen, got your number and everything.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I said coldly. “How could a four-day old corpse that’s just been dug up out of the ground be a victim of a hit-and-run?”

Tighe blinked slowly then looked at Karnak who blinked slowly back at him.

“I knew he’d been murdered,” I said. “I called the State troopers and told them where to find the body, but the people who killed him got smart and put Sweet William into another pen.”

“Pen?” Tighe repeated in a hollow voice.

“Pigpen,” I explained.

Tighe looked at Karnak and they went through their blinking routine again.

“This Sweet William character,” Karnak said slowly. “That’s his alias, huh? What’s his real name?”

“That is his real name!” I said. “He’s a boar.”

“I know a lot of guys give me a pain in the neck, too,” Tighe said seriously. “But they still got a surname.” “Cheez!” I muttered. “I’m talking about a pig—bacon on the hoof—a grunting type thing, you know, like ham?” Karnak shrugged his shoulders and retired from the fight.

“Strain,” Tighe said. “Nervous tension builds up and up—and something’s gotta give.”

“O.K.,” I tried again wearily. “Let’s start at the begin ning—right?”

“Right,” he said warily.

“The corpse was a guy called Philip Hazelton and yoi found it in the trunk of my car—right?” I said.

Tighe shook his head slowly. “The corpse belonged t< a guy called Carl Tolvar, a New York private eye, anc we found it on the road about half a mile up from you girl friend’s farm.”

I just stood there, staring at him blankly. If there wa: anything I could say to him, I couldn’t figure out what i was right then.

“You’d better get dressed,” he said. “Make it fas as you can, Boyd, I almost can’t wait to get down to you car again and take a look inside the trunk!”

I had a nasty feeling this just wasn’t going to be mj day.

Tighe and Karaak had gone out on a routine hit-and run assignment and come back with a first-degree homi cide, so then everybody got into the act.

By three that afternoon I’d lost interest—all I wantec was to give my throat a two-months’ vacation. I’d talkec and talked and talked. I figured that when I started, thej thought I was trying to be cute, and by the time I’c finished they were convinced I was candidate for the funny-farm—and maybe they were right. I wasn’t toe sure myself any more.

A Lieutenant called Greer had taken over where Tighe and Kamak left off. He looked like a real good Joe, i pal in need; like Pete would say, a buddy. Then you took another look and saw the cold fire in his eyes and jus? how tight the mask of good fellowship was drawn across his face.

At three in the afternoon, Greer quit asking questions and left, taking Tighe with him. Kamak took over the questions for another hour, but he didn’t come up witt any originals so he finally lost interest. He sent out foi 74

; coffee and let me buy a couple of packs of cigarettes— when the cop gave me the change I almost handed him a dime without thinKing.

By six in the evening, Lieutenant Greer was back,

| alone. Karnak went out happily, leaving me alone with I the Lieutenant. Greer sat opposite me and tilted his hat | onto the back of his head wearily.

[ “All right,” he said. “1*11 give you what I’ve got so far, and you try and think up some more answers, Boyd.”

“A breeze!” I said bitterly. “What are you trying to pull—death by exhaustion, or something?*'

“The body in the trunk of your car did belong to Philip Hazelton,** he said. “We got an identification from the lawyer, Houston, and the father flew in around noon. The doctors say he was stabbed through the left lung, and the corpse had been buried for some time after death. So you were telling the truth about that anyway.** “I’m glad to hear it,” I told him.

“Hazelton was murdered sometime between last Sunday midnight and early Monday afternoon,” he went on, “as near as the doctors can figure it.”

“I was in New York,” I said.

“Can you prove it?”

“Sunday night I played a little poker,” I remembered. “The game broke up kind of late, between three and four. I went back to my apartment to sleep. I got into my office just after nine on Monday morning. My secretary can verify that—there weren’t any visitors that morning but I had three or four phone calls—she’d have them listed, so you could check that also.”

“You want to give me the names and addresses of the poker players?”

“Sure.” I listed them for him.

“I’ll see it gets checked out,” he said. “If it does, it sounds like you’re off the hook for the homicide at least. You couldn’t drive up here, murder Hazelton, and drive back inside five hours.”

“I’m glad you appreciate that, Lieutenant,” I said sincerely.

“You got a long way to go yet, boy!” he grunted. “The blood and cloth fiber fragments on your front bumper belong to Tolvar all right.”

“What else have you got?”

“The eye-witness, Peter Rinkman.”

“That’s Pete, the strong-arm?”

“The handyman,” Greer said patiently. “He was walking back to the farm along the roadside around 3:30 a.m. when he saw a car coming toward him stop a couple of hundred yards away, and a guy got out and lifted the hood, obviously trying to fix some kind of motor trouble. Then he saw another car coming down the road at high speed. The first guy got out in the center of the road, waving his arms for the second car to stop, but it didn’t. Didn’t even slow down, he said, but the driver must’ve seen Tolvar out there in the center of the road. He heard the sound of the impact and saw Tolvar tossed into air; he managed to get the license number of the car as it went past him.”

“A bright boy, that Pete!” I said. “He estimate the speed of the second car?”

“Over seventy,” Greer said coldly.

“The first car stops two hundred yards away from him,” I repeated. “He sees the guy climb out, lift the hood, start fooling around with the works. He sees the second car coming—the guy run out into the center of the road and wave his arms—and then get hit. From the time the first car stopped until the time of impact would have been how long, Lieutenant?”

Greer shrugged. “Fifteen seconds maybe.”

“And Pete’s walking toward the car, getting closer all the time,” I said. “After the impact, he’s got time to watch Tolvar tossed into the air before he picks up the license number of the second car. He must have narrowed the distance by twenty-five yards anyway. The second car’s doing seventy, he figures—that would mean 76 somewhere about four seconds elapsed from the time Tolvar was hit until the time the second car would have passed Pete.”

“You can’t put a stopwatch on human reactions,” Greer grunted. “A split-second glance could be enough for him to memorize the license plate.”

“O.K.,” I said sourly. “What else?”

“Sylvia West checks your story of dinner at Newport, then back through Providence to the farm. She says you left her just after 2:00 a.m.”

“Sure,” I said. “And found Tolvar waiting in the back seat of my car for me. I told you that.”

He nodded coolly. “So you did—you also told me how she wanted you to check on the pigpens because the boar had been moved and that was why the troopers never found the body when they looked for it.”

“Check,” I said.

“Miss West doesn’t remember anything about that,” he said softly. “She blushingly remembers being in the hayloft with you, but the pigpens—no!

“Neither of the Hazelton girls think they’re being kept on the farm against their will. According to them, their father, Houston, their attorney, and Rinkman, the handyman, you’ve been annoying them consistently over the last few days. So much so, that Houston hired a private detective to protect the Hazelton family against your intrusions. The private detective was Tolvar, of course.”

I was too beat to argue any more. “O.K.,” I said. “I dreamed up the whole thing—that Martha Hazelton hired me in the first place—I even dreamed up that two thousand dollar check I banked yesterday. Ah, what’s the use!”

“We’re holding you on the hit-and-run, for the time being,” he said. “The homicide can wait until we see how your alibi checks out. Do you want to call a lawyer?” “Not now,” I said. “It’s too late to reach my secretary at the office and—I just don’t have the energy. How about the morning?”

“Sure,” he said. “Right now you’ve got nothing but time to play with—so what’s your hurry?”

I spent the night in a cell. The bunk was hard but I slept too soundly to worry. In the morning I got a shave before breakfast. It would have been nice to get a toothbrush, shower, and a clean shirt, but I figured I had to get used to a drastically altered standard of living.

Around eight-thirty, Lieutenant Greer appeared in front of the cell. He gestured impatiently at the key-keeper to unlock the door and then beckoned me to step out.

“I want you to come with me, Boyd,” he said, and headed down the corridor at a galloping pace.

“What’s the deal?” I asked when I caught up with him. “Did the revolution happen last night and they made an amnesty for all the guys in jail this morning?”

“Save it till we get into the car,” he said tersely.

We walked out into the beautiful free air and slid into the back seat of a prowl car. Tighe was sitting in front, with Kamak driving. As soon as we were in, the car pulled away from the curb at a fast clip.

I lit a cigarette and looked at the Lieutenant. “So now can you tell me?” I asked him.

“You see that lake at the back of the Hazel tons’ farmhouse?” he asked abruptly.

“Sure,” I said. “Sylvia showed it to me the first time I was there—part of a general tour around the place. Why?”

“Houston called in ten minutes ago,” he said. “They just found Clemmie Hazelton floating in the lake—face down.”