“On your horse, friend,” a cool voice said. Gloria turned away from the circular window, looked up into the face of the young man who had watched her in the terminal.
“What d’you want?” Red-face demanded, growing even redder in the face.
“You happen to be annoying Miss Quinn. Also, you happen to be occupying my seat.”
Red-face thought it over, heaved himself to his feet. “Sorry,” he mumbled, lurching off to find Charlie.
Gloria demanded. “How did you know my name?”
“Listened when the manifest was checked. Thought he might bother you. I won’t.” He dug a paper-bound book out of his pocket and began to read.
“Thank you,” she said in a small voice.
He looked at her, raising one eyebrow. “Perfectly okay.” He went back to his reading. “I’m Steve Harris,” he said, without looking up.
When the signal was given, Steve Harris groped for and found the loose ends of his seat belt, strapped it tight across his thighs. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, learning how to do it herself.
The four motors, one at a time, bucked, kicked, spat and settled into a steady roar. The steps were being rolled away across the apron. She stared out the window at the busy airport.
Steve continued to read. Her heart gave a lurch when the plane began to move, began to trundle awkwardly down the strip. She bit her lips. The ship went a great distance, then wheeled around in a sharp semicircle. It stopped and the song of the motors rose to a high roaring whine, and the great airplane trembled and vibrated.
Suddenly they were rolling, and the acceleration pushed her back in the seat. Faster and faster, and then the ground was dropping away, spinning away into the distance, and she saw roads and tiny cars and the roofs of squat buildings speed swiftly by.
She let out breath long pent up and suddenly felt very tired. She leaned her head back, turning so she could watch the ground. The big wing stretched out into the horribly empty air. She saw the tip of it bend alarmingly and caught her breath.
“It’s supposed to do that,” Steve said quietly. “It’s built to bend like that in the air.”
“Oh, I... I didn’t know.”
“First time?”
Gloria nodded.
He said: “Dullest way to travel there is. But the quickest. Can’t see anything or do anything and the vibration gives you a headache.”
She was about to answer and then she saw that he had gone back to his book. She watched the morning sky for a time and then heard his heavy breathing. The book had fallen to the floor. His mouth sagged open a fraction of an inch. She saw that his eyelashes were very long, and very black.
Chapter Two
Elusive Lady
Steve Harris, his right eye open the merest fraction of an inch, inspected her fragile and very perfect profile. He felt very content. The future would bring many challenges, but at the moment there was nothing he could do without arousing her suspicions.
She wasn’t the least bit like what he had expected. He wondered if she knew anything about what Al Barnard had pulled. He guessed that she did. She had acted pretty cozy about moving around, about changing names.
For the moment, the case was moving according to plan. Maybe a little better than that. Being able to chase away the drunk was a break.
Sure, probably Barnard had managed to slip enough dough to her for her to get dressed up and buy the transportation. She probably had a little extra to live on until Barnard showed.
It was by far the biggest thing that he had ever gotten tangled up in. He felt more than a mild distaste at putting his services at the disposal of Wesley Gibb, fat, pseudo-socialite owner of the Candor Club. But Wesley had made it worth while. “Twenty percent of whatever you can recover, Harris. In cash.” One hundred percent recovery would thus net him eighteen thousand four hundred dollars, and the expenses would be on top of that.
Not too bad for an ex-cop from Peeks-skill who had been in a dead end because of department politics, he thought. Wesley Gibb, and everyone else, knew that Steve Harris was well-trained and completely honest.
Well-trained. Groundwork at Northwestern. CIC in the Army.
He watched her carefully while she thought she wasn’t being observed. He hoped in that way to find little clues to her character which would enable him to determine, in advance, her future actions. He looked at her hands. They were well cared for. Slightly squarish. Capable hands. And quite pretty.
In the bright light he could see the pale hair springing firm from the white clean scalp. Funny about her. He had gotten on her trail by routine work. The dead man was one Samuel Burkett. Burkett had a girl friend. She responded to sympathy and kind words, gave out with the names of four of Sammy’s friends. He had dug up addresses for them. Three of them were where they should have been.
The fourth, one Albert Barnard had left his room, apparently for keeps. The landlady had broken down for a ten-dollar fee, and let him in the room. Wednesday afternoon, in Barnard’s vacated room, in the wastebasket, he had found an eight by ten glossy print of a pale, rather pretty girl. He had pieced the bits together, found the photographer’s name on the back. Goldtint Special Three Huge Pictures for Two Dollars. Choice of Six Proofs. Glamorous Pictures. Like the Movie Stars. There was a penciled number on the back of the print, just under the photographer’s name.
“Yes, sir. We keep files. If you could tell me why you want...” The eye had flicked down and seen the numeral five on the corner of the bill. “If you’ll wait just a moment, sir.” The five changed hands.
“That’s a Miss Gloria Gerald. Here, I’ll write down her address. We mailed her the proofs and then she came in and told us which one she favored.”
It cost an additional five dollars to get a new print of Miss Gerald and a new print of Mr. Barnard, using the negatives in their files.
With the name and address, it was relatively easy to find that she was a file clerk in a loan company, and that she hadn’t been on the job since Friday at lunch time. And yet she was still occupying her room.
He had a hunch that Barnard would eventually come to her room. So, to insure a constant watch, he had hired a reliable twenty-a-day man to split the shifts with him, giving him first a long look at the photograph.
But Barnard hadn’t showed. Instead, she had moved. By luck, he had been on Saturday morning, followed her in a cab to the railroad station, saw her check the battered bag. Three times he had come closed to losing her in the stores. Then, seated on the far side of the lobby of the midtown hotel, he had seen her register.
Fifteen seconds after she had left the desk, he hurried up to the same man and said, “Say, did you see a blonde girl, dark blue gabardine suit, hat with flowers on it and—”
“Miss Quinn?”
“That’s right. Did I miss her?”
“By just a few seconds. She’s got room 1221, sir. You may be able to catch her at the main entrance...”
At six o’clock she followed the bellhop past his chair in the lobby. He lowered his newspaper after she had passed, just in time to see the initials G.A.Q. on the brand new luggage.
The darkness of early evening had helped him. He had been close enough to her taxi to hear her tell the driver to take her to the airline terminal. He had arrived there a few minutes after she did.
To the ticket agent he said, “Miss Quinn asked me to see if I could get a seat on the same plane she’s taking. I believe she was here just a little while ago.”
“Oh yes. That’s Daytona, isn’t it? We couldn’t book her directly to Daytona. Jacksonville is the best we could do. Will that be all right?”
“Fine,” he had said heartily.
“Be here at seven-thirty Monday morning, or at the airfield at eight-twenty, Mr. Harris.”
“By the way, if she should come back here to check anything about her ticket, don’t tell her that I got a seat on the plane. I’m going to tell her I couldn’t make it, and then surprise her.”
“Certainly, Mr. Harris.”
Schedule time was five and a half hours. Certainly not a very long time in which to wiggle into her good graces. Particularly since she’d be cautious. She looked intelligent. No point in taking any chances at this stage of the game.
He remembered how delighted Wesley Gibb had sounded over the phone. “Good work, Harris! Excellent. Daytona, you say? And you figure that he’ll join her there? This is much better than I expected.”
One stop at Washington and one at Atlanta. Maybe there’d be a chance to get better acquainted. She’d feel bound to stick close to him just to back up the story he had handed Red-face.
He made the sounds and movements of a man waking up. She responded faintly to his smile.
“Going all the way to Miami?” he asked, making it sound like polite conversation.
“Just to Jacksonville.”
“I get off there too.”