“They’ll catch you sooner or later. You know that.”
“I’m not trying to make any long-range plans,” I said coldly. “They’re after me, and if they get me it’s going to be rugged. I’m operating one minute at a time. When I’ve used up this minute, I’ll start on the next one.”
“And in the meantime you’re going to add a charge of kidnaping to make it worse?”
“It doesn’t get any worse,’ ‘I said.
“So you intend to stay here?”
“That’s right.”
She sighed. “Well, could I get my purse out of the car? Or is that against the rules?”
“We’ll both go get it. That is, if you think you can walk now.”
“I’m all right. Except I’ve got a splitting headache.” She slipped her shoes on and stood up. She seemed to be steady enough. We went out through the kitchen.
“Wait there by the door,” I said. “I’ll get it.” I stepped down into the garage, keeping an eye on her. She made no attempt to run back and get out the front door. I brought the purse in. She drew some water at the tap and swallowed a couple of aspirin she took from the purse. We went back into the living room. I walked over and felt my clothes. The shirt and shorts were fairly dry, but the suit was still soggy. When I looked around she’d gone into the bedroom. Maybe she was trying to get out the window. I ran to the doorway and looked in. She was standing before the mirror of the dresser, calmly touching up her lipstick. She glanced at me inquiringly. “What’s the matter?”
”I thought you might be trying to get out.”
“In that rain? Don’t be silly.” She pressed her lips together, surveyed the result, and dropped the lipstick back in the purse. Then she combed her hair. She was a very smart-looking girl. And spectacular. And about as unflustered as they came.
“You don’t scare easily, do you?”
“Not any more,” she said. She dropped the comb in the purse and looked at me. “Should I?”
“Why not?”
She gave me a crooked smile. “I’ve had two unsuccessful marriages. I’m over thirty. I’m utterly alone. And I’m washed up as a writer. So what are you going to do to me, Mr. Foley? Think of something.”
“All right. But just don’t try to get out of here.”
“Who said I was going to? This is my cottage, isn’t it? I don’t intend to be chased out of it by some displaced gladiator hiding from the police.”
I tried to read what went on behind that face, but I got nowhere. There was a chance, of course, that she was unworried because somebody was meeting her here. And when he arrived I couldn’t handle the two of them. Well, all I could do was sweat that out along with the rest of it.
Three
Wind shook the house again, and rain slashed at the windows. It was a little after four now, and in another two hours it should be growing dark. I could hear the rattle of the hasp and padlock once in awhile as gusts of wind battered at the garage doors. She was sitting on the chaise longue by the coffee table, calmly smoking a cigarette.
“Didn’t the paper say you were a merchant marine officer?” she asked.
“That’s right,” I said. “Third mate on a tanker.”
“Then why the trouble with a policeman? You’re not a criminal.”
“It was personal,” I replied. “Had nothing to do with his being a cop.”
“Did you go there with the intention of killing him?”
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
I heard a car coming along the road. Whirling, I slipped to the window and peered out. It was a police cruiser, going slowly past with its windshield swipes beating against the rain. It went on. In a few minutes it came back by, and I had to go through the whole thing again. It went past without slackening speed. They hadn’t noticed. I sighed. She said something.
“What?” I asked, turning away from the window.
“Was that a police car?”
I nodded.
“Why are you so worried? They have no reason to try to come in here.”
I told her about their being here before. “If they find out your car’s here now, they’re going to come in just to be sure you’re all right.”
“Oh,” she said. “So that’s the reason we can’t have a fire in the fireplace?”
”Of course.”
“What will you do if they do come?”
I shrugged. “What can I do? If you don’t go to the door they’ll know something’s wrong and they’ll come in anyway. They seem to think I have a gun.”
I reached out to feel the clothes again. The suit was still damp. When I turned she was watching me. She looked away. It was the second or third time I’d caught her doing that, and I wondered what she was thinking.
“Were you armed when you went to that detective’s apartment?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Were you drunk?”
“I’d had five or six drinks.”
“You must have known he might be armed. After all, he was a policeman.”
“I suppose so,” I said irritably. “I didn’t even think about it. All I was interested in at the time was bending his fat face for him. And as for having a gun myself, I could have thrown away twenty of them by this time. With the case I’ve got, a lawyer would tell me to plead guilty and pray.”
She shook her head. “I thought the paper said he was killed with a knife. That should prove you didn’t have a gun, or you’d have used it. Whose knife was it? His?”
“How do I know?” I said. “I didn’t see it.”
“You’re not really serious about that?”
“Of course not. The electric chair just brings out the clown in me. How’d you like to see my impersonation of Red Skelton?”
“Don’t get sarcastic. I’m not forcing you to stay here.” She lay back on the chaise longue and gestured toward the couch with her cigarette. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it?”
“What do you care?” I asked.
“I probably don’t. But if we’re going to stay cooped up together the rest of our lives, we might as well talk.”
I sat down, diagonally across the coffee table from her, and lighted a smoke. “I’d had trouble with him before. About two weeks ago I threatened to knock his roof in if he didn’t watch his step. It was in front of witnesses, so that helps too. Don’t bother telling me that sort of thing is stupid; I know it, but when it comes to characters like Stedman I’ve got a very short fuse. He’s a Lover Boy, one of those big, flashy, conceited types that has to spread himself out as much as possible to give all the girls a break. Especially the ones whose husbands are away a lot.
“My wife used to be a nightclub singer. We’ve been married about a year. It didn’t work out very well, because it’s no cinch being married to a guy on a tanker unless you just like being alone most of the time. We run up the East Coast and back like a commuter train, gone fifteen days and home one, except that we do get a long vacation once a year. She couldn’t take it. Last trip in I found out she’d been running around with Stedman. He was single and had an apartment there in the same building, the Wakefield, in the 1200 block on Forest Avenue. We had a real fight about it, and the same night I ran into Stedman in the Sidelines Bar, up in the next block, and had a few words with him. The owner of the place is a good friend of mine, though, and he broke it up and talked me out of starting anything.
“Last evening when we docked, I got the word. About the divorce, I mean. She was in Reno, along with the car and most of the joint checking account. Around nine o’clock I came uptown from the refinery and stopped in the Sidelines for a few drinks, and the more I thought about it the more burned up I got. I mean, I wasn’t broken up about it—hell, we were about washed up anyway—but I don’t like being played for a sucker, at least not by types like Stedman. So I went up to his apartment.