He took out his knife and cut the nylon. He yanked the towel from Christy’s mouth. Christy coughed and moistened his lips with his tongue.
“My wrists are killing me,” he muttered.
“Where did the girl go?”
“I don’t know. She left with a guy. Tall fella with a little bandage on his head. I never saw him before. The two of them busted me with a glass when I wasn’t looking. How about these wrists?”
Clavna trotted through the open door. “Hey, she left with a guy named Lane Sanson. He had a room on the second floor. They went down the fire escape and took off in a blue convertible. Here’s the license number. I wrote it down.”
Vance took the slip of paper and picked up the phone again. As he waited he said, “This’ll make it easier.”
Tomkinton frowned. “Lane Sanson. Lane Sanson. I’ve heard that name before. Wait a minute. Newspaper guy. War correspondent. Hey, he wrote a book! I saw the movie.”
Vance was talking softly over the phone. Clavna grinned. “A newspaper screwball. Boy, that’s all we need. What the hell do you think he thought he was doing, to leave here with the Saybree woman?”
“Maybe chivalry isn’t dead,” Tomkinton said.
“He’ll get chivalried all right,” Clavna said, his thin dark face alight with wry amusement. “He’ll get a belly-full.”
“Especially if they have the junk with them,” Tomkinton said.
Vance hung up. “All over but the shouting,” he said. “That car’ll be grabbed within two hours unless it sprouts wings. Already they got a report on it heading east.”
“How about taking this wire off me?” Christy whined.
Tomkinton knelt by him and untwisted the wire around his ankles first. Christy sighed and worked his thick legs. Finally the wrists were free. Christy got onto his hands and knees, then lumbered up onto his feet. He massaged his big white hands, inspected the wire cuts on his wrists.
“You guys are confusing me, talking about Shaymen,” he said. “I know the guy. I saw him in New York maybe three weeks ago. If somebody bumped him, it wasn’t me.”
“You killed him last night,” Tomkinton said.
“Nuts! Last night I was here, in Texas. How can I kill a guy in New York?”
“You killed him here.”
Christy looked at Tomkinton with blank amazement. “Here? Shaymen here? Well, I’ll be damned! What do you suppose he was doing here? Spying on me or something?”
“What did you come here for, Christy?” Clavna asked. “As if we didn’t know.”
“Well, boys, it’s like this. Miss Saybree run out on the boss. He was worried about her. He found out she was here. So he sent me down to talk her into coming back. He couldn’t get away himself. You know how it is.”
“He won’t be getting away for some time,” Clavna said.
Christy was motionless for long seconds. “What do you mean by that?” he asked in a low voice.
“You should keep up on these things, Christy,” Tomkinton said, smiling cheerfully. “The whole crew has been picked up. George, Al, Denny, Myron, Looba, Stace. Every one of them. And this isn’t just one of those suspicion deals. This is the works. Right down the line. They haven’t got a million to one chance of squeaking out. And neither have you. We’ll let the state of Texas take care of you for the murder, though. That’ll be the simplest, cleanest way.”
“I don’t know anything about no murder,” Christy said.
“Not even,” Tomkinton said, “with Clavna here tailing you. He saw you get picked up in front of a movie house in a car and noted down the license number. Vance told us it was Shaymen’s car, found this morning with his body beside it?”
Vance jingled the cuffs. He walked over to Christy. “Hold ’em out,” he said mildly.
Christy numbly stuck his big hands out. Vance started to snap the open cuffs down on the thick wrists. Christy’s hands flicked wide apart, then clamped down onto Vance’s wrists. The white wet-lipped face had gone completely mad. He flung Vance like an awkward doll directly at Clavna. The flying body smashed Clavna against the wall and, as they slid down in a heap, Christy reached Tomkinton in one bearlike bound.
Tomkinton was trying to scuttle backward and snatch the Police Positive from its awkward place in his right hip pocket at the same time. As he yanked it free, tearing the pocket, Christy’s right fist clubbed against the side of his head like an oak knot. The blow that knocked Tomkinton cleanly through the open bathroom door and sent him sliding across the tile to stop against the tub, fractured consciousness the way a piece of string is broken.
Vance, prone across the legs of the unconscious Clavna, was groggily shifting his revolver to his left hand, having found that there was no life in the right one. He fired once as he saw the heavy shoe swinging toward his eyes, swinging in slow motion, blotting out all the light in the world.
The slug tore through the top of Christy’s right shoulder, just above the collarbone. As an after-echo of the shot, he heard it smack into the wall behind him. A warmth and wetness ran down his chest and his back under the dark wool suitcoat. It drove him back a half step. His right arm still functioned. He snatched up the revolver from beside Vance’s hand and stuffed it inside his belt. He had never carried or used a gun. It always made him feel weak and sick to even look at one.
He opened the door, went quickly out into the hall and shut it. He was halfway down to the second floor when he heard steps along the second floor to the stairway, running steps.
Christy turned and stared up at the third floor. As the steps came up behind him, he said excitedly, “I heard a shot up there!”
The Ranger ran by him without a word. Christy turned and went down to the second floor, then down the next flight. He slowed his step as he reached the lobby. He walked out the front door onto the sidewalk. A state car was parked near the entrance. It was empty and the door was open.
Christy walked steadily down toward the bridge. The mid-morning sun was hot on the back of his neck. He could feel his shirt sticking to him.
He made himself smile and nod at the U.S. officials. “Just going over for a coupla hours,” he called.
The man waved him on. He paid the pedestrian toll to the Mexican guard in the middle of the bridge. The sun was a hot weight behind him, pushing him along. He touched his shirt pocket and felt the crispness of the bills he had taken from Shaymen’s billfold. Not much, but maybe it would be enough.
The guards at the Mexican end were checking cars as he walked by. They paid no attention to him. Barefooted women sat on the sidewalk, their backs against the wall, little piles of fruit and eggs in front of them. Christy felt weakness. The blood soaked the right side of his waistline.
A half block from the public square on the opposite side from the bridge he saw the sign. He climbed the dark stairway. There was one man in the waiting room. The nurse was a cute little thing in starched white. She spoke to him in rapid Spanish.
Christy sighed and took the revolver out. The waiting patient’s eyes widened and he crossed himself. The nurse gave a little cry of fear. He motioned them both toward the other door. The nurse opened it and backed in. The man slipped around her. The doctor looked up from the boy, whose infected leg he was treating, with sharp annoyance. His eyes narrowed as he saw the gun but the annoyance remained on his slim olive face.
“What do you want?” the doctor snapped.
“I’m shot. I want help.”
“Put the gun away.”
“Nuts. Tell the kid and the man and your nurse to go over into that corner and face the wall and keep their mouths shut. Hurry it up.”
The doctor spoke to the three. They meekly did as they were told. Christy put the gun in his left hand, shrugged his right arm out of the coat. He unbuttoned his shirt, pulled the cloth away from the wound and got his right arm out of the sleeve. Then he transferred the gun to his right hand and got his left arm out of the coat and shirt. He dropped them to the floor. The doctor watched him calmly.