The Getaway

10

Rudy Torrento and the Clintons started for California the morning after his arrival at their place. He was running a slight temperature, feeling worse than he had the day before. And Clinton suggested anxiously that they take it very easy for a day or so. But Rudy, fearful that Doc and Carol might get away from him, wouldn't hear of it. They were going to make California in three days, see? Three days and nights of steady driving. He himself would take a turn at the wheel if he had to, and if he did have to, they'd wish that he hadn't.

Then, late that evening, he heard the news about Doc and Carol; knew immediately that there was no longer any need for hurry. For certainly they would not be able to. The way things looked to him, he could probably roller-skate his way to California-and Golie's tourist court-and get there ahead of them.

So he informed the Clintons amiably that he had changed his mind. He'd decided to take Clinty-boy's advice after all, because what the hell was the use of having a doctor if you didn't listen to him? Anyway, they'd take it easy like Clint said, just take their time and get a little fun out of the trip; and they'd start in right now by turning in at a good motel.

They took connecting cabins, but only for the sake of appearances. They used only one of them, the three of them sleeping crosswise and partly disrobed in one bed, with Fran Clinton in the middle.

"Now we won't be getting lost from each other," Rudy explained, grinning. "Clint won't have to worry about me sneakin' off to the police, and reporting him for practicing medicine without a license."

Mrs. Clinton smirked lewdly. Rudy winked at her husband. "It's okay with you, ain't it, Clint? You've got no objections?"

"Why, no. No, of course not," Clinton said hastily. "It's, uh, very sensible." And he winced as his wife laughed openly.

He did not know how to object. In his inherent delicacy and decency, he could not admit that there was anything to object to. He heard them that night- and subsequent nights of their leisurely journey westward. But he kept his back turned and his eyes closed, feeling no shame or anger but only an increasing sickness of soul.

Just inside the border of California, they stopped for a picnic lunch at a roadside tourist park. Afterward, while Rudy dozed in the car and Fran Clinton thumbed through a movie magazine, her husband wandered off among the trees.

He did not return. When they found him, he was lying face down in a pool of blood, one of his small hands still gripping the razor blade with which he had cut his throat.

Rudy dropped down to the ground at his side. Clutching himself, he began to rock back and forth, groaning and gasping with what Mrs. Clinton mistook for a paroxysm of laughter. She could hardly be blamed for her error. She had never seen Rudy grief- stricken; the Piehead, overwhelmed by sorrow or laughter, appeared much the same.

So she began to laugh-with him, she thought. And Rudy came abruptly out of his fit and slugged her in the stomach. He beat her black and blue; everywhere but in her face. Except that he needed her, he would have beaten her to death. Then he made her carry the body into the bushes and cover it over with rocks.

She never again gave him reason to beat her. On the contrary, no one could have been more worshipful or watchful of his whims. Yet hardly a day passed after their arrival at Golie's that he did not pound and pummel her at least once. Because she annoyed him with her groveling. Because he was restless. Because he was very worried about Doc.

"Come on, boy," he would mumble fiercely, sitting hunched in front of the radio. "You can do it, Doc! You done it before, an' you can do it again!"

He seldom mentioned Carol in these injunctions; seldom thought of her. She would be with Doc, and as long as he was safe, so was she. Rudy couldn't see them as splitting up, getting fed up to the point of wanting to split. Like 'em or not, those two were really nuts about each other. And Rudy was sure that nothing short of prison or death could break them up. Just in case, though…

Rudy grinned evilly, considering the impossible possibility of a falling out between Carol and Doc. It couldn't happen, but if it did, it wouldn't change a thing.

Carol needed Doc; she'd never been on the run before, and she'd never make it without him. And because she wouldn't, Doc couldn't split with her or let her split with him. She'd be too apt to rattle the cup on him. Buy herself a deal at his expense.

They were tied together, bound together inextricably. And Rudy roared with crazy laughter when he thought what would happen if either attempted any untying. That would be something to see, one of them trying to get the jump on the other. Hell, it would be like trying to do something with your right hand without letting the left know about it.

They were still very hot news. Rudy himself was mentioned frequently, but the focus was mainly on Carol and Doc.

They'd been seen in New York, Florida, and New Orleans. They'd boarded a train for Canada, a plane for South America, a ship for the Straits Settlements. It was mostly nut stuff, Rudy guessed, the kind of hooroosh that always sprang up around a big name or a big kill. But not all of it.

Doc had friends everywhere. The really slick rumorplanting-the stuff that got more than a second look from the cops-would be their work, done to repay an old favor or simply to give a hand to a brother in need. One of their stunts even had Rudy going for a while.

Two stiffs were found in a burned-down house in Washington, D.C. They were charred beyond recognition, but of a size with Carol and Doc, and the woman's almost melted ring bore the inscription D. to C. As a clinching bit of evidence, the fire-blackened refrigerator was found to contain several packets of small bills, all banded with Bank of Beacon City tape.

The police were sure they had found the remains of Carol and Doc. So, almost, was Rudy. Then some eager beaver of a lab hound had managed to raise a latent print on the man's corpse, establishing him indisputably as an underworld in-and-outer who had acquired a bad name for reliability. And with this much to go on, the police hunted out the printing shop where the bank bands had been obtained. Aside from admitting that they had been made from his stock and type, the owner denied all knowledge of them. He was of the opinion, however, that the bands had been turned out during a burglary of his shop-said burglary having been duly reported to the police several days before.

So the hoax was exposed, if not the hoaxers. No one seemed interested in learning their identity. No one seemed to care who the woman had been. Rudy wondered about her in his weirdly oblique way, and was sullenly envious of Doc. The in-and-outer had been a bum, a no-good with neither the physical attractiveness nor the cash to attract a lady friend. So, apparently, Doc's friends had arbitrarily provided him with one. Just any dame that met certain specifications. They weren't sore at her, as they were with the man. It was a hundred to one that they didn't even know her. They'd snatched her and bumped her simply to help Doc.

Rudy was forced to admit that he had no such good friends. Even little Max Vonderscheid would never kill anyone to help him. Not that he cared; if a doublecrosser like Doc had friends, then he could do without 'em. But just the same…

"Come on, Doc," he pleaded. "Come to Rudy, Doc. What the hell's holding you up anyway?"