The Follower (24 page)

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Corey.’

She was still looking fixedly at the road as if she were driving and responsible for their safety.

‘When you came home and got back to your apartment his body must have been there?’

‘It was. I moved it. I didn’t know what had happened. I took it out and dumped it in a winter-stored car.’

‘From the start I wondered what you’d done. I couldn’t ask you, of course.’ She paused and added awkwardly: ‘You’ve guessed how it happened?’

Had he guessed? It was better not to think, better to let her say it.

‘Go on.’

‘You know Corey Lathrop sat on a parole board. He happened to be George’s parole officer. The day before George was going to follow Ellie to Mexico, he had to turn in a full report to Corey Lathrop. George didn’t know he’d been in love with Ellie. George is too far up in the clouds to know or care who loves who. But you can imagine how Corey reacted to all the sordid details.’

Yes, he could imagine. Corey, the prissy young protégé of the Rosses, Corey ‘whose idea of mad gaiety was to redeem convicts’.

‘He stormed right around to her apartment. Ellie was packing, just ready to take the plane for Mexico. He tried to stop her. He threatened if she went through with the carrier job to tell the whole miserable story to her parents and to you. You see, she was caught between two fires. If she didn’t go, Victor would ruin her marriage. If she did go, Corey would do the same thing. I guess she’d been taking dope, anyway, and by that time she was half out of her mind with all the pressures, the doubt, the guilt. There was some sort of a struggle. I don’t know quite how the gun came into it, whether it was his or hers, but . .

‘She shot him?’

‘Yes, she shot him.’

Slowly, out of the tangle in his mind, the question rose: ‘But how do you know all this?’

‘George. Victor had arranged for the stuff to be brought across the border in a portable radio. At the last minute, he thought it would be safer for Ellie to take in a duplicate with her so she could register it with the Customs. Just before she was ready to start he sent George around to your apartment with the radio. Ellie let him in. He found her there — with the body. She was in a terrible state, of course. But George is a man with only one idea. All he cared about was getting her to Mexico so that the impersonation could go through. She hadn’t the faintest notion, of course, that he was working with the police. She thought he was just one of Victor’s boys. So when he told her to go ahead to Mexico and swore that he and Victor would get the body out of the apartment and cover up for her, she finally believed him. Somehow he got her out to the airport.’

She paused. ‘Once she’d left, he didn’t do anything with the body. He knew, if he reported it to the police, they would have to take action and arrest Ellie. That meant his whole Mexican scheme would fall apart. So he just left it there, hoping it would be days before someone found it. He took the next plane to Mexico and went to Ellie at the Hotel Granada. She still trusted him, naturally. He told her the body had been taken care of. He also told her that Victor wanted her to leave the Granada and contact Mr Riley somewhere else. That’s how he got her to Oscar’s house and that’s where I came into the picture.’

It was all explained now. He sat looking into the past, looking back at himself dragging Corey’s body down the snowy alley to the car. He wondered whether it had been found yet. Probably not. He would have to go to the police. That was all he had to look forward to in New York. He wondered whether they would jail him for compounding a felony. It didn’t matter very much. In the mood of bleakness which had him in its grip, nothing that could happen to him seemed to make much difference.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I hid the body. I guess I’ve quite a genius for doing the wrong thing.’

‘You were standing by your wife. That’s not my idea of doing the wrong thing.’

‘I hope the police will see it that way.’

She turned to him with a sudden smile. ‘You don’t have to worry about the police. I’ve already got that all worked out. George can tell them Victor disposed of the body. Victor’s dead. We might as well make use of him.’

She said that in a casual, matter-of-fact voice. Obviously, to her mind, with its direct and uncompromising logic, it was the most natural thing in the world to use a bad dead man to help a good live man out of a jam.

He looked at her with an admiration that was tinged with regret. She had just said there were plenty more where she came from. He only wished it was true. It wasn’t, of course. There were Ellies, probably, dozens of them. Dozens of Georges and dozens of Marks. But there weren’t any other Frankies.

George with his flaming sword and his white charger was the luckiest crusader in history.

Her eyes, returning his gaze, were blue as the bay of Acapulco which was swinging into view behind her.

She said thoughtfully: ‘We haven’t been exactly chummy, have we?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘We’ve fought each other like a couple of wolverines.’

‘Whatever they are.’

‘But
– ’
She paused. ‘But there’s something you’ve got to know.’

‘There is?’

‘Yes.’ She looked down at her right hand, examining the nails. ‘I would have told where George was. Before Victor counted to ten — I would have told.’

He couldn’t believe she had said that. It was so completely unlike her. He gazed at her with astonishment and a new, improbable hope.

‘You would have told?’

She nodded solemnly.

‘After all you’d done for George?’

‘After all I’ve done. I love him. Of course I love him. But, let’s face it. I’m not something out of
Mourning Becomes Electra.’

‘My God,’ Mark exclaimed, ‘he’s your brother!’

For a moment Frankie looked blank, then a smile started in her eyes and spread to her mouth.

‘You dope,’ she said. ‘Hadn’t you realized that?’

The car had plunged into a noisy, crowded street now. In a few seconds it stopped, and Oscar, turning from the wheel, said:

‘Here, Mr Liddon. Here is the doctor.’

He jumped out and opened the door for them. Automatically they both got out. Oscar, hovering at Mark’s side, tugged diffidently at his sleeve.

‘Mr Liddon — is bad to ask if you give me back my wallet now?’

Mark produced the boy’s wallet and tossed it to him. Oscar examined its contents carefully and then brought out the sapphire ring. For a moment he cupped it in his small brown palm, gazing at it wistfully. Then he held it out to Mark.

‘I think and I think, Mr Liddon. And I cannot keep this ring. Is pretty. Ay, is pretty. Always I want a sapphire ring. But’ — he shook his head — ‘is for you — my friend.’

Mark looked at the ring in the boy’s outstretched hand. Then his eyes moved to Frankie. She was standing patiently on the curb while the Mexican crowd jostled past her. The dyed blonde hair gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Suddenly he wondered what she would look like with her hair brown. Wonderful, he thought. With her hair brown, she would be wonderful.

Oscar’s hand was still stretched out to him. He grinned and closed the boy’s fingers over the ring.

‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘Keep the goddamn thing.’

FIN

PATRICK QUENTIN

Patrick Quentin is one of the pseudonyms used by two writers of English origin who have lived the bulk of their lives in the U.S.A. Under the names of Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick, and Jonathan Stagge, they have written some thirty mystery novels and over a hundred short stories. Since their discharge from the army both of them have spent the summer and autumn months in New England where they write concentratedly together, doing a little amateur farming as a relaxation. During the winter and spring, they separate and travel, gathering material for future stories. Although they have investigated the Far East, Africa, and South America, their most frequent haunts have been France, Italy, Bermuda, and Mexico. Each, temporarily forswearing the collaboration, has recently written a straight novel on his own.

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