‘Did you bring the money?’ she asked and I caught an anxious note in her voice.
‘I brought it,’ I said, ‘but I’m not parting with it until I’m satisfied the information you have is worth buying.’
Her lips twisted into a bitter smile.
‘It’s worth buying. Let me see the money.’
I took from my hip pocket the wad of bills and held them so she could see them.
She stared hungrily at them. ‘Five hundred dollars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now I’ll show you what I’ve got,’ she said and moved over to a shabby desk that stood in one of the corners of the room. She pulled open a drawer.
All along, at the back of my mind, I had an idea I couldn’t trust her, but I was vain enough and stupid enough to believe, because she was a woman, I could handle her.
She dipped her hand into the drawer, then turned to face me. She had a .38 automatic in her hand which she pointed at me, and there was an expression in her eyes that sent a chill crawling up my spine.
‘Don’t move,’ she said softly. ‘Put the money on the table.’
For a long moment I stared at her and at the gun. It was pointing rock steady at my chest.
This was the first time in my life that anyone had ever pointed a gun at e and I didn’t like it. The gun looked terribly dangerous and horribly lethal.
I had often read in detective thrillers of the hero being held up by a gun, and I have accepted the author’s impression that his hero could face such a situation without turning a hair. I now discovered that I wouldn’t be much of a hero in fiction. I found my mouth had turned dry and there was a cold, empty feeling in my stomach.
‘You’d better put that down,’ I said huskily. ‘It might go off.’
‘It will go off if you don’t put the money on the table.’
There was a scraped, bleak look on her face and her dark eyes were glittering. She moved slightly to her left, keeping me covered. Her hand groped behind her, found the control knob on the oldfashioned radio that stood on a table against the wall and turned the set on.
‘There’s no one on this floor to hear the shot,’ she went on, speaking rapidly. ‘The old fool below us is deaf. He’ll think it’s a car back-firing or he probably won’t hear anything.’
The room suddenly became full of the sound of strident, violent jazz as the station came through the loudspeaker.
‘Put the money on the table or I’ll shoot you,’ she said, a vicious hiss in her voice.
I continued to stare at her. My heart gave a little bounce when I saw the expression in her face and saw she wasn’t bluffing. I saw too the skin of her knuckles tighten as she started to take up the slack on the trigger. I had a bleak feeling that any second the gun would go off.
She drew in a sharp breath and slightly lowered the gun. Even with her pancake make-up, I could see she was sweating.
‘Back up against the wall!’
I backed up against the wall and watched her scoop up the bills and stuff them into her overcoat pocket.
‘You won’t get far,’ I said, speaking as evenly as I could, which wasn’t anything to be impressed about. ‘The police will pick you up.’
She smiled at me.
‘Don’t kid yourself. You tell the police about me and I’ll tell about you. I know too. Don’t think I like doing this. I’m not a thief and I’m not a blackmailer, but I’ve got to get out of this town and this is the only way I can do it. Don’t turn suddenly brave and try to stop me leaving here or you’ll get shot. Now turn around and face the wall and don’t move.’
There was a ruthless, frightened expression in her glittering eyes that warned me she would shoot if I didn’t do what she said. I turned around and faced the wall.
I heard her go into the bedroom and then come out almost immediately. By the heavy way she walked, I guessed she was carrying the suitcase.
‘So long, Mr. Scott,’ she said. ‘You’ve been useful to me. Sorry for the double cross, but if you’re fool enough to fall for it, you can’t blame me.’
The door banged shut and I heard the key turn.
I moved away from the wall and taking out my handkerchief I wiped my sweating face. Then I crossed the room and snapped off the radio. The sudden silence in the room was almost as violent as had been the strident jazz.
I was moving towards the door when I heard Dolores, out-side in the passage, suddenly scream out: ‘No! Keep away from me! No… don’t…’
I stood there, my heart beginning to thump. The note in her voice was loaded with terrified panic.
Then she gave a piercing scream that went into me like a knife-thrust. The sound was followed by a scuffling noise and then the sound of a heavy fall.
She screamed again: a scream I still hear from time to time in a nightmare.
Then there was silence.
I stood there, tense, my heart hammering, listening.
I heard the grille of the elevator slam shut and then the creaking noise of its cable told me the elevator was descending.
After a long, tense minute the creaking stopped, and then faintly, three floors below, I heard the grille slam back.
Somewhere on the street a car started up and drove away fast. I still stood there, feeling sweat on my face, listening to the silence that now cloaked the whole of the apartment block, then faintly, I heard a horrible gasping sigh that came from the other side of the door: a sound that turned my blood cold.
CHAPTER TEN
I
As I stood there, staring at the locked door, the telephone bell started into life. Its sudden violent ringing made me start convulsively.
I looked quickly across the room to where the telephone stood on the desk, then, while the bell continued to ring, I tried the handle of the door, but the door was firmly locked on the outside.
It was a solid door, I couldn’t hope to batter it down without making a lot of noise, and besides, it would take some time.
I ran over to the window, pulled aside the curtain and looked down at the street, three storeys below. There was no way out that way.
I went into the bedroom and looked out of the bedroom window: still no way out.
I came out of the bedroom and back into the living-room. The strident sound of the telephone bell, ringing continuously, jarred on my nerves.
Across the room was another door. I opened it and glanced into a kitchen-bathroom. The window, high up, was too small for anything larger than a cat to pass through.
The persistent ringing of the telephone was now more than I could stand, and I went back into the sitting-room and removed the receiver laying it gently on the desk.
As I turned back to the kitchen, I heard a man’s voice come faintly out of the receiver.
‘Dolly! Is that you, Dolly? This is Ed. The goddamn train is leaving in five minutes…’
I ran back into the kitchen and opened a cupboard, hunting for a tool strong enough to break open the door, but I couldn’t find one.
I went back to the locked door. Bending, I peered into the keyhole. The key was still in the lock. I could still hear the faint voice, like a ghost voice, coming from the receiver.
I looked around the room. There was a newspaper on one of the chairs, and I tore off a sheet and slid the sheet under the door. There was a fair-sized gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.
I ran back into the kitchen, my heart thumping with panic and started a frantic search through the drawers in a cabinet. In the fourth drawer I was lucky enough to find a pair of thin pliers. I snatched them up and returned to the living-room. With a little manipulation I managed to force the key out of the lock and I heard it drop on to the sheet of newspaper.