“Let’s sit down,” I said. “This is an aristocratic liquor. It must be: it says so on the label.”
She giggled at that and licked her lips. Max had called her a rum-dum, and a rum-dum she was. She fetched a couple of dirty glasses and poured herself a drink that would have floated the hat off my head if I had drunk it. She didn’t bother to be polite or make conversation, and as soon as I was sure she had no other interest except to empty the two bottles I kept feeding her the stuff, and waited for her to pass out.
When she had reached the half-way line of the second bottle I began to wonder if I’d brought enough supplies. There was only one small drink left in the second bottle when she suddenly lost interest in things. It was only because she stopped lifting her glass that I knew she’d gone over the edge. She sat there, staring at me with blank eyes and blowing at the strand of hair.
I got up and moved around the room, but she didn’t attempt to follow me with her eyes. I guessed it was safe enough, and went into the passage and up the stairs. There were only three rooms upstairs. One of them belonged to Ma Otis. I could tell that by the pile of empty bottles in a corner.
The next room I went into was neat and clean, and by the blue serge suit hanging on the back of the door and the rubber slicker on the bed, I guessed Max slept there. Under the pillow I found an envelope. I sat on the bed and read what he had written. In a way, it was a pathetic letter. He said if she found it he would be dead or in trouble, and he gave a detailed description where he would be found. He kept repeating about the reward and how she must collect it. He knew he had to deal with a mind ruined by gin, and he made it as simple and clear as he could. He covered six pages driving it into her head what she had to do, and not to let Kate (who was the sister, I guessed) get her hands on the money.
I burned the letter as soon as I had read it. Then I went downstairs. Ma Otis was still in the chair, her blank eyes gazing at the opposite wall. She kept blowing at the strand of hair, otherwise she might have been dead. A big black cat stalked around her, sniffing at her as if whisky was a new kind of smell. Maybe it had got used to the smell of gin. I didn’t know. It looked at me with reproachful eyes, and I felt a heel.
I collected the two empties, looked around to make sure I hadn’t left anything and went to the front door.
I stood for a moment looking at the Buick, my hand on the .45. A girl was standing at the gate. We looked at each other. I guessed she was Kate. I went down, walking slow, keeping the empties out of sight behind my back.
“Did you want anything, please?” she asked as I reached the gate. She was thin and pale and shabbily dressed, and her hooked nose spoilt whatever beauty she might have had.
“Why, no I guess not,” I said. My voice sounded like a rusty gate squeaking in the wind.
“Have you seen Mother?” She flinched as she said it. “Is it about Max?”
“That’s right. I had a job for him, but he’s out. Tell him Frank Dexter called. He knows what it’s all about.”
The cat came down the path and began to rub itself against the girl’s thin legs. It still looked reproachfully at me.
“He’s been away two days,” she said, and laced and unlaced her fingers. “I’m worried. I don’t know where he is.”
“Your mother said he’d be back tonight, but I haven’t time to wait.”
“She — she’s not very well. I don’t think she really knows. Max went off two days ago, and we haven’t seen him since. I was wondering if I should go to the police.”
I opened the car door, slipped the bottles on to the seat without her seeing them.
“You do what you think best. I wouldn’t know. I just wanted to give him a job.” I got into the car. I wanted to be as far away as I could by the time she went into that room and found what I had done to her mother.
“Perhaps I’d better wait another day. Max is so wild. He might be in trouble. I don’t want the police . . .” Her voice trailed away helplessly.
“That’s right,” I said. “You wait. He mightn’t want you to talk to the police.” I trod on the starter and engaged gear.
“Well, so long.”
I watched her in the driving-mirror. She stood in the moonlight, looking after me. The cat continued to twine itself around her thin legs. I thought of Max up there in the shack with a bloody face and Veda guarding him. He was in trouble all right. Just as I turned the corner I looked again into the driving-mirror. She was walking up the path leading to the house. I suddenly felt a little sick.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BLACK AND ragged clouds were drifting across the face of the moon as I garaged the Buick and walked over the rough, scorched grass to the shack. All the way up from Altadena I had thought about Max wondering what we were going to do with him. I was still thinking as I reached the shack.
The obvious thing to do was to keep him with us until we were ready to quit: we weren’t ready yet, but in another week it should be safe enough to make a move. But it wouldn’t be easy to keep him a prisoner for a week. I should have to be with him the whole time, unless I kept him tied, and that wasn’t as simple as it seemed. The safest thing as far as we were concerned would be to take him somewhere and put a bullet through his head, but I wasn’t going to do that. I drew a line at murder. Even if no one ever found out, and the betting was that they wouldn’t, I still had to live with myself, and although I hadn’t been very fussy the way I had acted in the past I was changing my ideas now. I was going to walk upstairs instead of down for a change, and see if I liked myself any better for doing it. I thought I should.
No light showed from the shack, but that was to be expected. I had spent some time nailing old sacks across the window. A chink of light up here could be seen for miles. I made no sound as I walked to the door, and for a moment or so I stood still to listen. Then I tapped on the door.
“Veda?”
There was a little pause while I wondered if Max had got loose and had tricked Veda off her guard and was waiting for me on the other side of the door with the .25 ready to drill a hole in me. Then the door opened and Veda stood outlined against the lamplight.
“All right,” I said and went in, shutting the door behind me.
Max was sitting just where I left him. The blood had dried on his face. He looked like an emergency case in a casualty ward, waiting for attention; only he wasn’t going to get any attention from me.
“Did you get it?” Veda asked. Her voice was as metallic as a sheet of tinfoil.
“I burned it. Any trouble?”
“No.”
I went over to Max and stared at him, balancing myself on the balls of my feet, my hat at the back of my head, my hands in my trouser pockets.
“You had a fist full of aces but you fluffed your hand,” I told him. “And that still makes you a damned nuisance.”
He peered at me through puffy eyes. Fear as ugly as violent death sat on his face.
“You didn’t hurt her?”
“No. What do you think I am? We had a few drinks together. That’s how it was.”
He caught his breath sharply.
“I guessed that’s how you’d do it. I’m glad you didn’t hurt her. She ain’t a bad old lady.”
I made a grimace, thinking of the dirt and the smells and the pile of empty bottles. Still, she was his mother; that made a difference.
“You’d better wash yourself. Don’t try anything smart. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
I helped him out of the chair, undid the belt around his wrists. Veda moved over to the mantel and picked up the .25. She wasn’t taking any chances with him. While he rubbed his wrists and groaned to himself she watched him narrowly.
After he had washed the blood off his face and attended to his cuts and bruises, he came back with me into the outer room and waited awkwardly.
“We’d better have some food,” I said to Veda. “Then we’ll turn in.” To Max I said, “Sit down.”
He sat down and watched Veda as she served up. He seemed more scared of her than of me.
“You’ll have to stick around for a few days,” I told him. “It won’t be pleasant for you, but you brought it on yourself. You’re in the way and you’re eating our food, but I don’t know what else to do with you.”
“I could go home,” he said uneasily. “I wouldn’t say anything. I swear I wouldn’t.”
“Don’t be funny. I’m not in the mood for corny jokes.”
We had supper. He didn’t seem to be hungry, but having Veda sitting opposite him, staring at him with frozen blue eyes, would take the edge off anyone’s appetite.
It was getting on for midnight by the time we had cleared up and were ready for bed. I threw a heap of sacks in a corner.
“You can sleep there. I’ll have to tie you. Don’t start anything. If I hear you trying to get away, I’ll shoot and apologize after. We’re in too big a jam to take chances with a rat like you.”
He was very docile, and stood silent and still while I strapped his wrists again. I led him over to the sacks and he squatted down. I locked the shack door and took the key. The only way he could get out would be to tear down the sacking across the window, and I was sure I’d hear him if he did that.
Veda and I went into the inner room. We left the door ajar. I was tired. It had been a nervy evening, and I kept thinking of Ma Otis, blowing at her strand of hair, her eyes getting glassy and the reek of whisky on her breath.
“How’s your side?”
“All right. It’s a little stiff, but it’s nothing.”
I sat on the edge of the bunk while she undressed. She had a beautiful little figure, and even with Max on my mind, I got a buzz from her.
“What happened at his place?” she asked as she slipped her nightdress over her head. As the flimsy garment fell about her body a lot of glamour went out of the room.
“There was nothing to it. The old girl was a rummy. I fed her Scotch and she passed out. The note was under his pillow. It was loaded with dynamite. I burned it.”
“Would she know you again?”
“I don’t know. She was pretty far gone. Maybe not.”
She slid into the lower bunk.
“What are we going to do with him?”
We spoke in whispers so he couldn’t hear. The atmosphere in the shack had changed now. It was no longer like home. With him out there, it was just another hide-out.
“Keep him here. What else can we do?”
“He knows you’re growing a moustache.”
She stared at me, her eyes frozen, the muscle in her cheek twitched.
“We’ll have to watch him all the time. He’s spoilt everything, hasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
I began to undress.
“Mick would kill him if this was happening to him. He doesn’t deserve any better; coming up here, trying to blackmail us. He would have skinned us if it hadn’t been for you.”
She looked away.
“No one would know.”
“That’s right.”
There was a silence until I climbed up into the top bunk, then as I leaned out to snuff the candle, she said: “It would be the safest thing for us. He frightens me, Floyd.”
“Yeah, but we must get the idea out of our heads.”
“Yes.”
I reached down and took her hand. It felt dry and cold in mine.
“Don’t think about it. There’s nothing we can do. It won’t be long now: a week at the most. Then we’ll go.”
“He’ll tell the police. They think we’re in Mexico. As soon as he tells them we were here, they’ll start after us again.”
She was right, of course.
“Maybe we’d better take him with us. We might get to Mexico. Then we could turn him loose.”
“You don’t mean that, do you? You wouldn’t ever be able to prove you didn’t kill Brett.”
I thought about that. If the police knew we were still in the State, there’d be no hope of going after Gorman.
“That’s right.” I suddenly wanted to have her close to me. “Would you like to come up here with me?”
“Not now. My side aches a little. Tomorrow night, darling.”
“All right.”
I stared into the darkness, feeling alone. It was as if we’d been walking along a path together and suddenly come up against an impassable barrier. We could hear Max twisting and turning in the other room, trying to make himself comfortable. Once he groaned. I felt no pity for him.
“I wouldn’t want to live in Mexico all my life,” Veda said suddenly.
“You wouldn’t have to. A year would do it.”
“A year’s too long. You’d never be able to pick up the threads again. If you waited as long as that you’d have no hope of proving Gorman killed Brett.”
“We’re in a nice jam, aren’t we? I didn’t kill Brett, but they think I did. By killing Max I could prove I didn’t kill Brett; but where does that get me? I’m trying to prove I’m not a murderer; the only way I can do it is to become one. A sweet jam. All right, suppose I kill him. You and I will know, even if no one else does. We have to live with each other, and knowing I killed him would make a difference. We might not think so at first, but it would.”
“Yes; you mustn’t kill him.”
That brought us to where we had come in. A full circle, and no solution.
“Maybe we’ll think of a way.”
“He might get ill and die.”
“That’s a pipe dream. He looks good for another forty years.”
“Yes. Maybe he’ll have an accident.”
“Not him. He’s the careful type. No, I guess we can’t think along those lines.”
Max began to snore.
“He’s not worrying. He knows he’s safe enough.” Her voice was bitter.
“Try to sleep. We could go on like this all night.”
“Yes.”
I lay in the darkness and racked my brains for a way out of the mess, but there wasn’t one. If we let him go, he’d betray us for the reward. If we kept him here, we should have to watch him the whole time, and any moment he might surprise us. If we packed up and left him here, it would only be a day or so before the police would be after us. The problem went on and on in my brain; a treadmill of despair. I heard Veda crying softly to herself, and I hadn’t the heart to comfort her. The darkness was thick and airless. Max’s uneasy snores tormented me, and when I did fall asleep I dreamed that Veda turned against me and was in league with Max. Every time I looked at them they were smirking at me, and it was I who lay on the sacks in the outer room, and Max and Veda were together in the inner room. And I lay in the darkness and heard them whispering to each other, and I knew they were planning to kill me.