Gasoline?
I shot a glance at the gauge. It was a little over half full. It might be enough. But this would be poor country to try to cut it fine. I looked back at the map. About seventy-five miles south we’d go through a small town. We could fill up there.
I lit a cigarette and glanced around at her. The soft glow of the dash lights was on her face. I studied it for a moment while she rammed the car ahead between the dark walls of pine. What kind of woman was this, anyway? It hadn’t been thirty minutes since she had killed another woman, she had probably murdered her husband, she had burned down that enormous house she had lived in all her life, she was running from the police, and yet she could have been merely driving over to a neighbor’s to play bridge for all the emotion she showed.
But still it wasn’t in any way an expressionless doll’s face. It was just intensely proud and self-contained. Maybe she felt things and maybe she didn’t; but win, lose, or draw, it was her business. She didn’t advertise. There was a cool and disdainful sort of arrogance about it
that didn’t give a damn for what anybody thought—or for anybody, for that matter.
At least that made us even on that. I didn’t care much for her either.
“Not so worried now?” she asked. I could hear the faint undertone of contempt.
“Look, Hard Stuff,” I said. “I’ll make out all right. Don’t fret about it. It’s just that if you’re trying to hide from the police, I don’t see any sense in telling them where you are by killing people just for laughs. Or starting a bonfire to attract attention. So let’s don’t try it again. You might get hurt yourself.”
“Careful,” she said mockingly. “Remember how much I’m worth to you alive.”
“What do you think I’ve been remembering? The touch of your hand?”
“Quite proud of your tough attitude, aren’t you?”
“It’s a tough world.”
She said nothing. In a few minutes we hit the crossroad. She turned left. The road began to drop a little toward the river country. It was wild and sparsely settled, and we met no cars.
“See if you can find a place to get off the road,” I said. “You’ve got to change those clothes.”
“All right.”
She slowed. In a few minutes we saw a pair of ruts leading off into the timber. She pulled off far enough to be out of sight of the road, and stopped in a small open space where there was room to turn around.
I got out, but before I did I lifted the keys out of the ignition. She saw it. She smiled. “Trust me, don’t you?”
“You think I’m stupid?” I gestured toward the traveling bag. “Change in the car. And let me know when you’re ready to go.”
I walked back a short distance toward the road and lit a cigarette. The sky was still overcast, and night pressed down over the river bottom with an impenetrable blackness and a silence that seemed to ring in my ears. Nothing moved here. We were alone.
Alone?
They were drawing circles around us on the map. The radio was snapping orders, efficient and coded and deadly. Police cars raced down highways in the darkness all around us. Like hell we were alone. We had lots of company; it was just spread out around us, waiting.
I turned my head and I could see the red glow of the car’s taillights behind me. We could beat them. They had everything in their favor except the two things they had to have to win: a description of the car and a description of me. They didn’t know who I was or what I looked like, or even that I existed. If I could keep them from seeing her, we could make it.
I finished the cigarette and flipped it outward in the darkness. She called softly. I turned. She had opened one of the car doors so the ceiling light would come on. When I walked up, she was holding a mirror and putting lipstick on her mouth.
She had changed into a skirt and a dark blouse about the color of her eyes. The sleeves of the blouse were full and then tight-fitting about the wrists, and below them her hands were slender and pale and very beautiful. She finished with the lipstick, put the mirror back in her purse, and looked up at me.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said. “For a woman who’s just murdered another one, you look great.”
“You have a deplorable command of English,” she said. “Don’t you find murdered a bit pretentious as applied to vermin? Why not exterminated? Or simply removed?”
“Yes, Your Highness. Excuse me for breathing. Now, take those three keys out of your purse and hand them
here.”
“Why?”
“Because I like your company. I adore you, and
wouldn’t have you leave me for anything.”
“They’re no good to you alone.”
“I know. But they are to you. And if we get clear of here tonight you might suddenly decide you didn’t need any more help—not at today’s prices. I can’t watch you all the time. I have to sleep occasionally, and I don’t intend to follow you to the John. So just to remove the temptation, I’ll take charge of them.”
Her eyes met mine coolly, not quite defying me, but just testing me and watching. “There’s an easy way,” I said, “and a hard way. How do you want it?” She took the three keys out of her purse and put them in my hand. “That’s better,” I said. I put them in my wallet.
I looked at my watch. It was nine-twenty. I could feel that awful urge to run and run faster and keep on running take hold of me again. I got behind the wheel and we rolled back on the road. We shot ahead in the darkness.
We crossed the river on a long wooden bridge. The road began to rise again. We couldn’t make much speed. There were too many chuckholes in the road. I managed to keep it around forty.
“Just where, precisely, are we going?” she asked.
“Sanport. Thirty-eight-twenty-seven Davy Avenue. Memorize it, in case we get separated. My apartment’s on the third floor. Number Three-o-three.”
“Number Three-o-three. Thirty-eight-twenty-seven
Davy,” she repeated. “That’s easy to remember.”
“And my name’s Scarborough. Lee Scarborough.”
“Is that authentic? Or another alias?”
“It’s my right name.”
“To what do I owe this unprecented confidence? You
wouldn’t tell me before.”
“With those two people listening? You think I’m crazy?”
“Oh,” she said. “And, in case we do get to Sanport
alive, what do we do with the car?”
“I’m going to take it to the airport and ditch it. After I get you into the apartment. I’ll take a taxi or limousine back to town.”
“That’s a little obvious,” she pointed out. “I mean, if we were really taking a plane, we’d leave the car anywhere but at the airport.”
“I know. But they’ll never be sure. As a matter of fact, they may never get a lead on this car, anyway. But even if they do, and find it out there, all they can do is suspect you’re in Sanport. You’ll be on ice. You’ll never go out on the street.”
“We can’t get the money out of the vaults unless I go out.”
“I know. But we can wait until some of the heat’s off. How long is the rent paid on them?”
“For a year. A year from July, that is.”
“All right. It’s easy, if we just get there. You stay right in the apartment for at least a month. Maybe longer. We do what we can to change your appearance. I’m working on that now. Maybe we’ll make you a redhead. Change you from the skin out, cheap, flashy clothes, that sort of thing. There’s only one thing, though. How many times have you been in that bank where you rented the boxes?”
“Banks,” she said. “They’re in three different ones. I was in each of them only once.”