He righted the little table. Still, there was no way that the damage wouldn’t be noticed if anyone came into the bedroom. I was cleaning my gun this afternoon, officer, and it just . . . they must hear that pretty often. But still the gun had nothing to do with Kate, or with her brother’s kidnapping. So that would be all right. What he had to do now was show the world that Kate Southerland was still alive. After that, there ought to be lawyers around sharp enough to demonstrate to the world that whatever had been happening to Kate lately was not Craig Walworth’s fault.
But this time, when he got back to the cheerful kitchen, his chronic fear was realized. Kate was gone. No trace of her. And the back door was still locked and bolted from the inside.
Partial relief came with the realization that she must have wandered off somewhere, and still be in the apartment. He found his front door still chained up, too, when his hopeful search for Kate took him that far. He stood in the living room and called her name a few times, tentatively. He was completely certain that that image of Carol, with a hole shot in her dress but not the pink skin of her belly, had been a picture projected out of his own doped mind. That had to be. Tonight’s Kate, though, had looked worn and almost sick, and despite that—or maybe because of it—she had been very real.
Of course Carol, now that he thought about it, never looked all that real anyway. Beautiful, God yes, but . . .
So he went through the whole place once more, calling Kate’s name softly, peering into closets as he went and even under the beds. Doing this made him feel no sillier than anything else he could think of doing.
Once the gun in his belt pinched his belly when he bent over to look under a bed, and he had a sudden almost overpowering impulse to draw it out and put the muzzle to his head and pull the trigger. Would death be a drug-delusion too, an unreal sleep? Was Kate really dead and was he sharing the ultimate bad trip with her? When people got up from the morgue and walked . . .
His doorchime sounded distantly. Someone at the front. The lobby desk should have called up—or had he missed hearing the intercom?
This time he didn’t even bother looking through the viewer first. He just undid the fastenings of the door and opened up, ready to take whatever came.
It was Kate again, standing there dumbly, looking just as she had before.
“How do you do that?” Irritably he reached out and grabbed her by the solid, real jacket sleeve and pulled her into the apartment. “Now stay put, will you, and let me think? I got a head full of shit and I got to try to think. Baby, I’ve got to be sure you’re real before I call the cops to try to show you off.”
“He’s coming after me,” said Kate, in her dazed voice that assigned nothing any gradations of importance.
“He? Who?”
“I went downstairs just now, and there he was, coming along the walk. He wants me to go back with him. Give me orders, put me out of the way somewhere, that’s what he wants. But I’ve got to keep looking for Joe—”
Reality was suddenly as unmistakable as an onrushing truck. “Winter’s coming? Up here?”
“—and he won’t let me go on looking.”
It was quiet enough now that Walworth could hear one of the front elevators running.
He ought to show the world one Enoch Winter, dead, along with one Kate Southerland alive. Winter had forced his way in, trying to attack her. Tell that story, and then let the good lawyers guide him through.
Quickly he closed his front door again, leaving it unlocked. His last look out into the lobby showed him the mirror with its draping raincoat. Show business, he thought.
Waving Kate to stand back, he retreated just a few steps from the door and drew the gun and thumbed the hammer back very silently. He raised it in a two-handed aim, keeping his gaze squarely on the door.
“What are you doing?” Kate’s voice was suddenly changed radically toward the normal, as if the sight of the drawn gun had acted as a tonic shock. “Craig!”
The doorbell chimed. Somehow, with the distraction from Kate, he had missed hearing the sounds of the elevator stopping and opening.
“Who?” he called out sharply. His hands, center-aiming at the door, were very steady.
“Winter,” the deep voice answered.
“No,” Kate whispered, somewhere behind him. “It isn’t. Be careful, don’t shoot.”
“Come in,” Walworth called, his trigger finger very slowly taking up slack. “It’s unlocked.”
The knob turned and the door swung in. Not Winter at all. Almost as tall, but lean. Under an open black topcoat, what looked like a new suit of expensive black. A somehow Christmasy red tie, a fine white shirt. Smiling, jaunty, vigorous, but obviously old.
The old man.
I see now that you would only laugh like an idiot if I tried to tell you his real name.
Walworth fired. Even though he knew, before the gun went off, exactly how much good the bullet was going to do him.
NINETEEN
Kate saw the old man step in through the front door, and in the same instant she heard the pistol fire. Only with that shock did her mind grow fully clear. If the old man had really needed help, she would have been too late to help him. As it was, she sprang forward with a speed and strength that she had not known she possessed, reaching past Craig’s shoulder to knock down his joined hands with the weapon still clasped in them. The force of the movement knocked Craig to his knees.
The old man smiled reassuringly at Kate. Then calmly bending with his own fluid and unhurried speed, he caught Craig by the shirt front and lifted him erect again, letting the gun stay somewhere on the floor. Reaching back with his free hand, Corday pushed the door shut behind him. Then he gently questioned both of the people with him: “Where is Joe?”
“He’s been here,” said Kate. “He’s not here now.”
Craig said: “I’m not gonna take any heat to protect her. Go over to Enchantress Cosmetics. As for Carol.”
“And what does Carol look like?” The question was in a tone of mild interest. Walworth’s strong, young body was swaying, and he seemed to be trying without success to avoid the old man’s eyes. The old man seemed to be keeping the young one propped up with one finger.
“Real good shape,” Walworth muttered. “Sharp dresser. Young. Red hair—”
“Ah? And where is the place you mentioned?”
Walworth named an intersection. “About eight blocks from here, west and south. I gotta warn you about her. She’s really got it in for you.”
“Indeed.”
“And for me too,” Walworth added hastily. “She wants me dead. Just today she drugged me—bad, man, bad. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. I thought you were a friend of hers just now, coming to finish me off. That’s why I . . .”
“Kate has told me,” the old man softly interrupted, “how and where she came to meet them. Johnny has spoken to me of a bearded man driving a car, who asked him for directions.”
Walworth’s hands that had aimed the gun so steadily were shaking now. He couldn’t seem to find anything to say.
Kate could only think of one thing clearly. “Please,” she broke in, talking to the old man. “I can help you now. I’m all right. Let’s go find Joe. He’s in real trouble.”
Still holding Walworth almost tenderly with one thin hand, the old man turned thoughtful eyes to Kate. “Go to the location this man has just given us,” he ordered. “I shall follow presently.” When Kate hesitated, he repeated firmly: “Go.”
Kate nodded, turned, and fled toward the kitchen. There was no sound of the back door being opened, but Walworth knew that she was gone.