The Name of the Game is Death (18 page)

From a curve away I had no trouble seeing both his red face and the flash of the yellow telegram he snatched from her through the window of the MG. Franklin tore it open, then stood motionless for a good sixty seconds before he walked around the MG, opened its door, and sat down beside Lucille.

Their heads stayed close together for what seemed like fifteen minutes. When Franklin scrambled out of the MG and headed for his cruiser, I was ready. I swung around and headed back to town, turned off at the first intersection, and parked. The cruiser came flying along the highway, its siren
rrrr
ing. Franklin was hunched over the wheel, his tomato face set in bulldog lines.

Three minutes later the MG rolled past.

Lucille's face was white and strained-looking.

I tagged along behind them.

The curtain was going up.

I found Blaze Franklin cocked up against the back wall of the Lazy Susan's office in a straight-backed chair when I walked in two hours later. That's where I'd have been, too, if it were me, but I still had to grade him A for nerve. He took one quick look when I came in the door, then paid no attention to me. Mr. Franklin now had other things on his mind than Chet Arnold. They had to think now they'd had me in the wrong picture.

I inquired at the desk for mail, then got myself a Coke from the machine. The young clerk behind the desk tried to engage Blaze in conversation, and Franklin bit his head off in about eight coarsely chosen words. The clerk turned a dull red and subsided.

I went out and walked down to my unit. I could see the office from it, and I could see Franklin. Twice he got up and picked up the phone on the desk without a by-your-leave and made a phone call. I was glad to see it. The longer he sat there with nothing happening, the more time he had to think about things that could go wrong. I wanted him shook. I hoped his phone calls were to Lucille. I wanted her shook.

Most of all I wanted Franklin right where he was. His uniform made it hard for me to move openly against him. I could kill them both, but that wouldn't get me the cash. I could be sure of getting to Lucille with no interruptions as long as Franklin was nailed down at the motel. I had a five P.M. date with Lucille, although in the excitement she was a good bet to have forgotten it. If she gave me a hard time about where the cash was when I had her alone, I'd shake her till her pants fell down.

I watched Franklin for another hour. He made a couple more phone calls. He was a busy boy. At four-fifteen I shaved and started to change for my date with Lucille. I went back to the window, buttoning my shirt. I couldn't see Franklin. I could see the chair where he'd been sitting, but he wasn't in it. I waited a couple of minutes, but he didn't come back.

I finished dressing in a hurry. I shoved the .38 in its holster, slipped on my jacket, and walked to the office, Franklin still wasn't in sight. The clerk looked at me inquiringly. I jerked a thumb toward Franklin's empty chair. "The birddog gone?"

The clerk didn't spit, quite. "Good riddance," he announced.

"Did he say where he could be reached?"

"He said nothing."

"Did he get a call from anyone?"

"No, but he made enough of 'em. The last one he swore and banged down the receiver and took off."

J went outside and sat in the Ford. What could have happened? Nothing on earth should have moved Franklin from that chair. Once he read the telegram, he must have seen that his one chance to keep the lid on was to intercept the telegram-sending Earl Drake and dispose of him quietly.

The telegram from Earl Drake announcing a meeting at the Lazy Susan should have made Franklin afraid to move. He should have sat there in the motel office, getting both madder and shakier by the minute as nothing happened. Nothing should have been able to move Blaze Franklin away from that motel office.

I went over it step by step. The only logical answer forced itself upon me, finally. I'd underestimated the bastard. Suppose he'd been smart enough to call the point of origin of the telegram to check on its sender? And had been told the circumstances which the trucker wouldn't have disguised? With the telegram exposed as a phony, how much brains did Franklin need to figure out who'd sent it from up the road so it could come back and bounce off Lucille at the post office?

So why hadn't he rushed down to my motel unit and shot me up, down, and sideways, and triumphantly hauled in the riddled corpse? It was what he should have done. If lie had the sense to escape the booby trap I'd set for him, how could he have missed the obvious follow-up?

There was something I still didn't understand. Something I didn't know. It was time I learned it.

I started up the Ford. Nothing was changed, really, except that now I had to keep an eye peeled for Franklin. I drove to the post office to collect Lucille.

She was standing on the sidewalk when I pulled up in front.

One look was enough.

Wherever Blaze Franklin was setting himself up to do business with me, Lucille Grimes knew about it.

I opened the passenger-side door and she got in. "Let's stop for a drink at the Dixie Pig first, shall we?" she said with no preliminary. Her tone was icicle-brittle.

My first impulse was to refuse. For one thing, I wasn't fussy about waving the blonde under Hazel's nose. But there were overriding factors. The Dixie Pig was now obviously just another gambit in the game.

Okay, we'd go to the Dixie Pig.

I drove there and drew up in front. I reached across her and opened her door again. "You go on in," I told her. "I just remembered I've got to pick up a few dollars a guy owes me. I'll be right back."

She didn't like it, but what could she say? She climbed out reluctantly and closed the door. "Hurry back," she said with an attempt at a smile. The shark teeth were polished to a high gloss.

I circled the Dixie Pig driveway when she went inside. My hunch had paid off. Snuggled in among the six or eight parked cars at the rear was Franklin's cruiser. Lucille had brought me here so that he could take up the trail without difficulty for their intended final act of the drama.

I pulled out on the highway and in half a mile found a shiftless-looking country store where I bought two pounds of brown sugar. I opened the sack and placed it carefully on the front seat beside me. Back at the Dixie Pig, I nosed into a parking space near the cruiser.

1 sat and watched the booths whose windows overlooked the back parking lot. I couldn't see anyone in either booth. I picked up the sack of sugar, got out of the Ford, walked to the rear of the cruiser and removed its gas cap, dumped in the brown sugar, replaced the cap, and crushed the bag and stuffed it in a pocket. It might have taken me ten seconds. The sugar I spilled was indistinguishable from the crushed stone.

I brushed off my hands and walked through the Dixie Pig's back door. If Lucille and Blaze had seen me drive in, I was right on schedule. Franklin was at the bar, his back elaborately to the door through which I'd entered. Lucille bounced up from a booth and met me in the center of the floor. "I've changed my mind about a drink right now, Chet. Why don't we wait until we eat?"

"Anything you say," I told her. Franklin was already gone from the bar when we moved toward the door. Behind the bar Hazel all but stood on her head trying to attract my attention. I avoided looking at her.

The cruiser was gone from the parking lot. Franklin would take up the pursuit on the highway. How would he know whether to turn north or south? I found out how he knew. "There's a nice place south on the highway, Chet," Lucille said. "I understand it's quite good."

"Anything you say," F repeated. Full twilight wasn't many minutes away when I turned left from the Dixie Pig driveway. "How far is it?"

"A dozen to fifteen miles. The decor is supposed to be attractive." Her voice was as cool as a mountain brook. Only the hands clenched in her lap betrayed her tension.

A dozen to fifteen miles was the superlative of fine. Franklin shouldn't be able to fetch half that before the sugar in his gas line froze his engine. It was a bonus that he'd ho decommissioned outside of town.

I switched on my lights south of the square. I kept an eye on the shoulder of the road. A mile south we passed a car pulled off on the right, almost indistinguishable in the gathering darkness. I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been looking for it. I watched its parking lights come on in my

rear-view mirror as it rolled out onto the highway behind us. The wolf was in the sheepfold.

We played follow-the-leader down US 19. Franklin dogged me from so far back I caught only an occasional glimpse of the cruiser's parking lights. He didn't need to stay close because he knew where we were going. After a few miles there were no lights of any kind behind us. I didn't think even Franklin would be running that letter-S stretch without them. Right about now he should be cursing up a storm.

It was a silent ride. Lucille roused herself from a private reverie when we'd been on the road twenty minutes. "Three's a big white sign," she said, leaning forward in the seat. "And then it's off to the left about a mile."

Naturally they wanted a spot away from the main highway. We both saw the sign at the same time. A little beyond it Lucille pointed out a graveled road. I turned into it. No lights of any kind turned in behind us.

A wagon road branched off in the headlights, and I turned up it. "Not that way!" Lucille said sharply. I drove about fifty yards farther and cut the motor and lights, insurance against a raging Franklin commandeering another ear.

"Plenty of time for food," I said, slipping an arm around Lucille. My purpose was to keep her from fleeing if she suspected anything, but she didn't. She lowered her head on my shoulder. She was content to await the arrival of the rear guard in the darkness under the trees.

I wished I could see her face. Her expression should be interesting. As far as I was concerned, Lucille Grimes was already dead. It was just a question of when and how. In a way it was too bad. This was a really talented bitch.

Right then she gave me another demonstration of it. She grabbed the horn, and it blatted twice. She was reaching for the light switch when I caught her arm. She sat there tensely with her arm in my grasp, waiting for Blaze Franklin to come from the darkness and kill me.

I could sense the shriveling of her self-confidence when

nothing happened. "You beginning to get the idea he's not coming?" I needled her. "He's not splitting with you, Lucille. He's splitting with me. Your boy friend's sold you out. I'm supposed to bury you twenty yards off this side road."

It shook her to her round heels, but she was too smart to go for it completely. "He'll k-kill you," she rasped. She tried to look over her shoulder.

"Where is he, then?" She was silent. "Get smart, woman. It's lucky for you I like you. Get on the ball now and steer me to the money. I'll take care of Franklin for you."

There was only one thing she could think. Even if Franklin hadn't sold her out, he'd flubbed his end of the deal, and she had to protect herself. Her steel-trap mind should have been telling her she was in perfect position to play it cool right down to the finish line and then choose up sides with the winner.

I couldn't understand why she hesitated.

"We—we never found the money," she said at last. Her voice was husky. "Only the—the thousand in the envelope, and a f-few thousand on—on him." She drew a quivering breath. "If only I'd never mentioned to Blaze the odd-looking man who mailed such odd-looking—" Her voice died away.

So
that
was why Franklin wanted me alive.

He hoped I knew where to find the cash.

The funny thing was that I did.

Now.

I tightened my grip on Lucille's arm. "Franklin killed him before he found out where the money was?"

"Hell yes," she whispered.

It wasn't too surprising that Franklin hadn't been able to crack I Bunny. I started up the Ford. "Tell me where he was staying, Lucille." She didn't say anything. I turned my head to look at her. Her face was an indistinct pale oval. "Tell me," I said impatiently. "Franklin might not have been able to find it, but I can."

She told me.

She had difficulty in getting it out.

Her directions would have put Bunny's place north "I town. I switched on the dashlight. She was watching me,

and she backed away in the seat as far as she could get. I lowered my hand over my chest and drew my .38. Her face

crumpled in fear. I pulled her toward me, reversed the gun, and slashed her across her soft inner arm with the gunsight. She cried out in pain and shock as the blood welled. "I'm giving you one chance to change that story,' I told her. "Because if there's nothing there, the gunsight is what happens to your face till my arm gets tired."

She changed her story.

The new one put Bunny's place east of town, which sounded a lot more reasonable to me.

I rammed the Ford out. Lucille sat huddled beside me. I hadn't expected her to go to pieces so completely. She

should have had no difficulty riding with a foot on each addle until either Franklin or I got dumped.

II was odd riding east on Main Street past the shack with its sign, "Airboat For Hire." The side road which Lucille reluctantly directed me to turn on couldn't have been more than three-quarters of a mile beyond the point where I'd so painfully slogged over brambled trails. No wonder Franklin had been getting itchy.

11 was a small cabin way out in the middle of nowhere. I got out of the Ford and ran a flashlight around the building. There were no telephone wires. I circled it cautiously. A mound of cut branches loomed up in the light. I pulled away a handful. There sat the blue Dodge, up on blocks.

So Lucille hadn't lied to me this time. I returned to the Ford. She sat in it, motionless. I had to take her by the arm again to get her out. She didn't want to come with me.

I got a chisel and maul from the trunk of the Ford, herded Lucille up to the door ahead of me, and smashed the lock. A wave of dry heat rolled out at me as the door shivered open, a musty, long-closed smell. Lucille was still dragging her feet, but I kept a good hold on her arm.