A Touch of Death (Hard Case Crime Book 17)

  “Well, that was the general idea,” I said.

  She sat down, switched on the radio, and leaned back. “Let’s see if there’s any news.”

  The radio started to warm up. Then smoke began to pour out of the cabinet.

  “Hey,” I said, “turn it off! The damn thing’s burning up.”

  She switched it off and looked innocently across at me. “Isn’t that odd?” she said. “It was all right a little while ago.”

  “Must have a short in it,” I said. “I’ll take it to a shop in the morning and have it fixed.”

  “Do you think it’ll take long?”

  “No,” I said. “Probably get it back in two or three days.”

  “That long? Perhaps you could rent one while it’s being repaired. Or buy a new one.”

  “Why?” I asked. “You afraid you’ll miss the soap operas?”

  “No. I just feel so isolated without it.” She smiled. “Cut off from the world, you know, as if I didn’t know what was going on.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on. And you can read the papers.”

  She’d like hell read the papers.

  Again I tried to guess how much she knew. There was just no way to tell. I began to hate that lovely, imperturbable face. Everywhere I looked it was mocking me. It showed nothing. Absolutely nothing. Inside she could be laughing, just waiting for a chance to kill me.

  If she knew, all she had to do was wait for me to go to sleep and let me have it. She would have committed the perfect crime. In my pocket were the three keys to all that money, and I was the only remaining person on earth who knew she was still alive. She could walk out, take the money from the boxes, and leisurely board a plane to anywhere she wanted to go.

  It could drive you crazy just thinking about it.

  I was wanted by the police for killing her, but she could kill me and walk off with $120,000, and nobody would even look for her.

  Not for Madelon Butler, because she was dead.

  Not for Susie Mumble, because she had been born here in this room and nobody else knew she existed.

  It was insane. But there it was.

  But did she know?

  She had probably planned the whole thing the exact instant Diana James had dropped her flashlight there in the basement and we had seen her face as she reached to pick it up. She’d put it all together in that short fraction of a second—the deputy’s recognizing her, what would happen if the house burned, all of it.

  But, still, could she be sure it had worked? Diana James might have been wearing a watch with her name inside it, as I had said. How could she tell? But I knew by now what kind of mind I was dealing with. For one thing, she could be carefully adding up all these little things: my forgetting to bring in the paper, the strange way the radio had conked out so conveniently.

  And, of course, there was always the chance that she had heard the whole thing on the radio during the afternoon. If she had, she was laughing.

  I started around the circle again. If she did know, I didn’t dare go to sleep. If she didn’t know, I had to keep her from learning. That meant she had to stay in here where she couldn’t see a paper until she was out of the news, two or three days, or maybe longer.

  That, in turn, meant waiting to get at the money, not being able to run. And how much waiting did I think I could take, never knowing from one hour to the next when Charisse Finley might remember who I was?

  I could feel the skin along my spine contract with chill at the thought. I couldn’t take it. I’d go raving mad sitting here hour after hour just waiting for them to knock on the door. I was even in the phone book. All they’d have to do was drive out here and walk in.

  And all the time they’d be hammering at Charisse Finley. Where did you see him? Or his picture? Try to remember. Think. Maybe he was in the papers. About how long ago? Try to guess. A big guy who looked like he’d slept in his face? Maybe he was a pug. Try some pictures of fighters, Joe. How about football players?

  We couldn’t wait. I had to get out of here. I’d take her down to the banks as soon as they opened in the morning. I’d wear dark glasses and stay in the car, parking as close to each one as possible, making her go right in and out again. She wouldn’t have a chance to get at a paper. Not until after we’d got the money, anyway; and afterward it wouldn’t matter. Just let her try to hold out any of it or get it back.

  I couldn’t sit still any longer. I could feel pressure building up inside me as if I were going to explode. I went into the kitchen and mixed two drinks. I’d tell her the plans were changed. But I had to make it sound reasonable, not let her know what I was afraid of.

  I brought the drinks in and gave her one.

  Then, before I could think of how to start, she glanced thoughtfully at me, frowning a little, and said, “Do you remember asking me about the names those boxes were rented under?”

  I had started to taste the drink. Something about the way she said it made me stop. “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

  She hesitated just slightly. “Well, I … I mean, something has been bothering me, and the more I puzzle about it, the more confused I become. You see, I had it all written down.”

  “Confused about what?” I demanded.

  “The names. I—”

  “Look,” I snapped at her, “don’t try to tell me you’ve forgotten ’em. You knew ’em this afternoon.”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s not that. I remember them perfectly. But, you see, there are three banks and three names, and now I’m not certain which goes with which.”

  It was just as if she had read my mind. I held the glass in my hand and stared at her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WHAT WAS SHE TRYING TO do?

  That was what made it awful. You didn’t know. There was no way you could know.

  Maybe she had heard the news and was trying to break my nerve and make me run. But why? If I ran, and took the keys with me, she’d never get the money. That couldn’t be it.

  Maybe she was stalling so we’d be here long enough for me to break down from sheer exhaustion and finally go to sleep, so she could kill me. But in that case, didn’t she know that if we waited too long and the police did get here they’d find her too? Waiting was just as dangerous for her as it was for me. No, it was more so, because if they found her here alive I’d no longer be charged with murder, but she would.

  Maybe she did know it but was still cold-nerved enough to play out a bluff like that until everybody else had quit. Maybe she was going to let it work on me, the fear and the suspense and the waiting, until I was actually afraid to go out on the street where the cops were looking for me. Maybe I’d crack wide open, give the keys to her, and ask her to get the stuff out of the boxes and be stupid enough to expect her to come back here with it.

  Or maybe she was just sweating me a little before reviewing our contract. Perhaps she wanted to renegotiate the terms, using a little pressure here and there.

  There were just two things I was sure of. One was that she wasn’t mixed up about those names. Not with a mind like hers. And the other was that I couldn’t let her know she had me worried.

  I took a sip of the drink. “Well, I’ll tell you,” I said. “That looks like something that comes under the heading of your problem. You remember what I told you? If there was any monkey business about that money, hell wouldn’t hold you. So what are you doing about it?”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” she asked coldly. “I’m trying to remember. I’ve been racking my brains all afternoon.”

  “And just how long do you think you’ll have to rack ’em before you come up with the answer?”

  “How do I know?”

  I lit a cigarette. “Well, there are two very simple solutions to it,” I said. “The first one is known as the Blue Method. I just take your throat between my hands and squeeze it until your face turns the color of a ripe grape. When you’re able to breathe again, everything comes back to you. It’s a great memory aid. Something
scientific about fresh oxygen in the brain.

  “The second one is even simpler. As soon as the banks open in the morning you just pick up the phone and ask ’em. It’s easier on the neck too.”

  “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she said icily. “Just give the bank a list of names, and ask if any of those people had a safe-deposit box there? You know they don’t give out information like that.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t ask that way. You know how to do it as well as I do, but just to give you an out so we don’t have to use the hard way, I’ll tell you. Call the Third National. You’re Mrs. Henry L. Carstairs. You can’t remember whether or not you received a notice that your box rent was due. Would they please look it up? Either they’ll say it’s paid up until next July, or they’ll say they can’t find any record of your having a box there. In which case you say you’re so sorry, you keep forgetting your husband transferred it to another bank.

  “Then you call the Merchant’s Trust, and try again.”

  She nodded coolly. “Precisely. And if Mrs. Carstairs is lucky, she finds it there. Then one more call to the third bank, using either Mrs. Hatch’s name or Mrs. Manning’s, will have established all three of them with one call to each bank, no matter which way the last one answers. I know all that. It’s elementary.

  “But suppose I’m not lucky, and they still say no to Mrs. Carstairs at the Merchant’s Trust? We know, of course, by the process of elimination, that she has to be at the Seaboard Bank and Trust. But that still leaves the first two blank, with two names, which means starting around again. One more call, to either of them, will do it, but that may be just one call too many.

  “Don’t forget that all those boxes are rented under fictitious names, I have no identification at all, my appearance has changed, and I am a fugitive from justice with my picture on the front pages. Anything that makes them take a second look at me when I go in there is dangerous.”

  She had the answers, all right. She always had the answers. And she knew I wouldn’t tell her she was no longer a fugitive.

  “That’s right,” I said. “But look at it this way. The chances are exactly two to one that you’ll find Mrs. Carstairs on the first two calls. Isn’t that better than telling me you can’t get that money? That way, you haven’t got any chance at all.”

  “You will persist in trying to frighten me, won’t you?”

  I got up from the sofa and walked across to her. She sat looking up. Our eyes met.

  “I’ve come a long way after that money,” I said. “I’ve taken a lot of chances. I want it. So don’t get in my way. I’m not playing any more.”

  I reached down and caught her by the throat. She didn’t fight. She knew the futility of that. The eyes stared at me with their cool disdain.

  I intended only to frighten her. But it began to get out of control. I tightened the hands. She’d try to cheat me out of it, would she, the mocking, arrogant, double-crossing little witch?

  The room swam around me. She was beating at my arms, trying to reach my face. Make a fool of me, would she? I hated her. I wanted to kill her. My arms trembled; I could hear the roaring of wind in my throat.

  Something snapped me out of it just in time. Some glimmer of sanity far back in my mind screamed at me to stop and made me let go of her throat before it was too late. I stood up, trying to control the wild trembling of my hands.

  Good God, what had happened? I’d started to go crazy. I’d nearly killed her. And the only thing on earth that could save me if the police did catch me was the fact that she was still alive. And if I killed her I’d never get that money

  But I couldn’t let her know how it had scared me. I turned away and lit another cigarette. When I looked around again she was sitting up, struggling to get her breath.

  I was all right now. “That give you an idea?” I asked.

  She said nothing until she had recovered and completely regained her composure. She straightened her clothing.

  “That’s the only language you speak, isn’t it?” she said at last.

  “It’s one we both understand,” I said. “Think it over. Maybe you can remember how those names go.”

  “I’ll probably get them straight, in time. But what’s the hurry? We have a whole month, don’t we?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. This is too close to all those damned cops looking for you. I want to get farther away.”

  “So you want me to go out on the street while my picture is still on the front pages? Considerate, aren’t you?”

  “I tell you, we’ve got to get out of here!”

  “And,” she went on calmly, “might I remind you of the terms of our agreement, Mr. Scarborough? You were to keep me hidden here for at least a month before I had to go out.”

  “Listen,” I said, my voice beginning to grow loud. “I tell you—” Tell her what? That I was the one the police were looking for?

  Maybe she was deliberately trying to drive me crazy.

  Suddenly, from nowhere at all, I remembered what that blonde had said. “You’ll never get that money You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Before it’s all over, one of you will kill the other.”

  I wanted to jump up and run out in the street to get away from her before I went out of my mind and killed her.

  Go out in the street? Where every cop in the state was looking for me and had my description?

  Sit here, then, with those cool, inscrutable eyes watching me squirm, mocking me? Sit here, waiting hour after hour for the knock on the door that would be the first warning I’d ever have that Charisse Finley had remembered who I was at last?

  Sit here and go slowly mad thinking of three safe-deposit boxes stuffed with fat bundles of money being held just out of my reach by this maddening witch?

  How long before you broke?

  After a while she went to bed.

  I made a pot of coffee and watched the hours crawl around the face of the electric clock on the bookshelf. I began to imagine I could hear it. It made a tiny snoring sound. The ashtray filled up with butts. The room was blue with drifting layers of smoke.

  I would sit still until my nerves were screaming; then I would walk the floor. Three or four times I heard sirens crying somewhere in the city and each time the breath would stop in my throat in spite of the fact that I knew if they came they wouldn’t be using sirens. On a thing like this they came quietly, covered the front and rear exits, and two of them came up and knocked on the door.

  It was the elevator that was terrible. The apartment was only two doors away from it and I could hear it, very faintly, if it stopped on this floor and the doors opened. I began to catch myself listening for it. I held my breath listening for it. I imagined I heard it.

  Then I would hear it, really hear it, the doors opening softly as it stopped. I waited for the footsteps.

  There were never any footsteps because the hall was deeply carpeted. The elevator doors opened and then there was only silence, silence that went up and up, increasing, like a scream.

  Which way had they gone?

  I waited, counting.

  Was it twelve steps? Fifteen? I waited, not even able to breathe now with the pressure building up in my chest, my nerves pulling tighter and tighter, waiting for the knock on the door.

  Ten … eleven … fourteen … seventeen … twenty …

  They had gone the other way. Or gone on by.

  I would be weak and drenched with sweat, a cigarette burning my fingers.

  I would relax a little.

  Then I would begin listening for the elevator to stop again.

  It was morning.

  It was Friday morning. This was our last chance until Monday. The banks here were closed all day Saturday in summer.

  She came down the hall from the bedroom. She was wearing the blouse and skirt again, and her hair was out of the curlers. It was red, all right, a rich shade of red, in tight, burnished ringlets close to her head, as if the whole thing had been sculptured from one ingot of
pure copper.

  She smiled. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “very pretty. How about those names?”

  “My face is a little tanned already, too. Did you notice?”

  I stood facing her, blocking her way. “The hell with your face.”

  Her eyebrows rose coolly. “You appear to be in your usual bad mood. Didn’t you sleep well?”

  “I slept fine,” I said. “I asked you a question. Have you got those names straightened out yet?”

  “Would it inconvenience you too much if I had a cup of coffee before you started hounding me about it?”

  She had a cup of coffee in the kitchen, black coffee with a slug of whisky in it. I sat down across from her.

  “Are you going to call those banks?” I asked.

  “Only as a last resort. I’ll think about it some more first.”

  “Don’t you know that the more you think about it, the more mixed up you’ll get?”

  She shook her head. “No. You see, when I wrote them down, with the names of the banks, I remembered the last names came in alphabetical order—Carstairs, Hatch, and Manning—and what I’m trying to remember now is whether the banks actually came in the order in which I went into them. I can almost see the list. It’s so tantalizing—at times I’m positive I visualize it exactly as it was.”

  “Where is the list?” I demanded.

  She shrugged. “It was in the house. I forgot to pick it up.”

  “You forgot!”

  “Nobody is perfect.” She smiled. “Even the great Mr. Scarborough forgot to bring in the paper he bought.”

  There it was again, that subtle needling. She knew, all right. She was laughing at me.

  I leaned across the table. “Don’t stall me,” I said. “I can’t take much more of you. Are you trying to beat me out of that money?”

  “Why should I?” she asked, wide-eyed. “If you carry out your end of the bargain, I can assure you I’ll carry out mine.”