This time, walking down the long carpeted hallway, he ignored Room 508 and passed on to 510. He entered through the unlocked door, but was careful to snap the catch so that it clicked behind him. He rechecked the bathroom door to be sure that it was still locked.
Opening the bottom bureau drawer, he removed the zippered bag-the bag in which he had placed the fragments from his broken windshield and the gun which young Vince Dunne had dropped on the floor of his car. He took out only the gun and then reclosed the bag. He used his handkerchief to remove any possible fingerprints from the weapon. When he was finished, he placed the gun on the bed while he hauled the heavy upholstered chair around so that it half faced the door leading into the room.
Then he picked up the gun, still using the handkerchief, and tucked it down between the cushion and the seat of the chair. The handkerchief remained loosely twisted around the checkered grip.
He was kneeling at the door of the room, some thirty-five minutes later, his ear pressed to the keyhole, when he heard the elevator come to a stop at the end of the hallway.
It wasn’t until the footsteps were almost opposite the door that he heard them, softened as they were by the thick carpet. They died out and a moment later he heard the small click of a key in the lock of what he knew must be the door of Room 508. He waited only until he heard the door close and then swiftly got to his feet and crossed to the bathroom door. Once more he knelt, putting his ear to the crack.
There were several moments of silence and then he heard someone enter the bathroom. He heard the sound of voices but was unable to distinguish the words.
A hand tried the knob of the door against which he was standing and it turned but failed to open.
And then all was quiet.
Gerald half smiled, a nervous smile. He looked at his wrist watch and nodded with satisfaction.
He tried to remain oblivious of the time, tried to blank his mind, knowing that it would be futile to worry. The die was cast and there was nothing more to be done. It would happen the way he planned it or it wouldn’t happen and there was nothing more to do now but sit here in the big leather upholstered chair facing the doorway of the room and wait.
Once, after endless minutes had passed, he became conscious of the ticking of his wrist watch as his right elbow rested on the arm of the chair and his head rested against his hand. He began to count the ticks, counting up to sixty, and checking the minutes on the fingers of his hands-until he suddenly realized that the individual ticks of the watch didn’t mark off the seconds but marked off the half seconds.
He was thinking about that, half smiling to himself, when he heard the alien sound; heard the key turning in the lock of the outside door. He knew then for the first time that someone was on the other side of it, someone who had approached on silent footsteps and was standing there at this very moment, preparing to enter.
He sat suddenly stiff and tense in his chair and watched as the knob slowly turned and then the door was quickly opened and Sue Dunne stepped into the room. Slaughter was directly behind her and he followed the girl inside, wordlessly turning and softly closing the door and snapping the night lock.
Gerald Hanna watched the man, but conscious of Sue tense and silent a couple of feet away. Slaughter stood there, his hands thrust deep into the side pockets of his light-weight jacket. He stared at Gerald coldly. Somehow or other he seemed to have lost his suaveness and he no longer appeared to be a small-time businessman or a bank teller or a salesman. He looked hard and dangerous.
“All right,” he said, his gravelly voice very low.
“All right, where is it? Where’s the stuff.”
Gerald jerked his head, indicating Sue.
“Let’s wait until Miss Dunne leaves,” he said.
Slaughter smiled, without humor.
“She stays,” he said. “Right here, until we get through.”
Gerald looked at her and saw that she was staring past him, as though he didn’t exist. Her face was totally without expression.
“Witnesses,” he said. “It’s foolish to have…”
“She stays,” Slaughter repeated. “You are the one who guarantees her silence, remember?”
Gerald shrugged, nodded. He looked up again at Sue and this time she was watching him, but he could tell nothing by her expression. Was she trusting him; did she believe in him? He couldn’t tell. Couldn’t guess.
It wasn’t the way he wanted it, with her there in the room, but there was nothing he could do about it. He’d just have to play it that way, take this one additional gamble.
Gerald looked over at the zipper bag sitting on the night table.
“Where’s the money?” he asked.
Slaughter ignored the remark and stepped quickly across the room. He opened the bag and dumped its contents on the white bedspread.
For a moment then the man just stood there, his dark eyes wide and staring as he looked at the collection of broken glass. The blood began to surge up his thick neck and into his beefy face. He swung around with a curse on his mouth.
“What is this,” he half yelled. “What kind of lousy joke…”
“The money,” Gerald said. “You were to bring the money. The thirty-five thousand dollars. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Slaughter stared at him.
“You’re cute, aren’t you,” he said. “Real cute. The fact is, I suspected there was something screwy about this deal. Suspected something like this. Figured you for a phony. So I put the money in an envelope and checked it down at the desk. Now, if you aren’t a phony, and you want to play it smart, just show me the stuff and then we can go downstairs together and we pick up the dough.”
Gerald smiled thinly at the other man.
“I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you’d just happen to be carrying a gun in that coat pocket of yours, would you?” he asked, his eyes going to Slaughter’s right hand which was still thrust into his jacket pocket.
Slaughter removed his hand, looking at Gerald in disgust.
“Don’t be a damned fool,” he said. “What do you think, I was going to come up here and stick you up or something? Of course I’m not carrying a gun. You think I’d be crazy enough to shoot anyone in a place like this? I’m no gun-happy desperado.”
“I just wanted to make sure,” Gerald said.
“All right, now you know. Let’s get back to the jewels. Have you got the stuff or haven’t you? If you have, then let’s see it!”
Gerald nodded his head in the direction of the bureau.
“The bottom drawer,” he said. “In the brief case.” He turned to the girl as Slaughter crossed the room in a couple of quick steps.
“Go over and sit in that chair by the window,” he said. It wasn’t a request; it was an order.
For a long moment her hot, tired eyes looked into his and he was unable to read anything in their depths. She stood as though frozen and he wondered if she had even heard his words. But then slowly she turned and without a word crossed the room and found the chair by the drawn Venetian blinds.
Slaughter had jerked open the drawer and had the brief case in his hands. He lifted it, almost as though he were mentally weighing it, and then he fumbled with the catch and opened it.
He was staring, fascinated, into the contents of the brief case as Gerald took the gun from the place where it was half concealed beneath his body at the side of the seat cushion.
As he started to rise from the chair, his finger pressed the trigger.
The bullet crashed into the panel of the bathroom door and even as the sound of the shot reverberated in the confines of the small, closed room, Slaughter dropped the brief case and swung around.
Sue, in the chair by the window, gasped, but sat still and stiff, as though frozen to the seat.