“Not very, but when I saw you, I knew you’d not mind driving a few blocks for me.”
“Certainly not.” With the horn behind prodding him, Sylvester let the clutch out slowly and the sedan crept away from the curb.
They drove five blocks, turned left and were on a dark, quiet street. “Two blocks longer this way,” Sylvester said, “but not so much traffic.” His hands stayed clammy all the time he was driving in traffic.
He kept trying to place Joe Clayton, glancing furtively at him. Then his gaze dropped to Clayton’s shoes. Weakness washed over him. The left shoe tilted sharply outward...
He heard the other man. “Hah! You know me?”
Sylvester nodded. Peroxide and a curling iron would account for the wavy blond hair; a bit of make-up, parafin to change the nostrils, things Sylvester had heard about vaguely, had further changed the man.
His vocal cords opened enough for him to whisper, “Yes, Mr. Bassett.”
Todd Bassett tilted bark his head and laughed. Gone now was every vestige of restrained speech and manner. He was exactly as Sylvester remembered — hard and illiterate. Todd had seen enough of the world for him to put on a faint edge of polish, with effort, when he needed it; but now the killer in him glowed in his eyes.
“Okay, you little punk! You worm!”
Sylvester shrank behind the wheel, steering the car with difficulty. “But why me, Mr. Bassett. Why...”
“Because it’s safe. No copper’d get it in his numb brain that a smart guy like me would be hiding in your basement. And you’re one of the rats that used to think I was so awful when the truant officer, or whichever you call the rat that hunts kids that’s too smart to go to school, would get me.” He laughed without mirth. “I heard a little of what your old woman said this morning. Thought I better see you and make sure the basement stayed cozy.” Numb with terror, Sylvester moaned.
Then he was aware that Bassett’s hand had made a quick motion. For the first time in his life, Sneed saw a gun up close. He was looking at it from the business end, and there was a leering, laughing face behind it. His pulses pounded in his head, and he felt sick. The bore of the gun yawned at him, got bigger and bigger until it encompassed him. Sneed fainted dead away...
He couldn’t have been out long, for the car was still quivering when his brain swam out of the gray, sickening mist. The windshield was cob-webbed with cracks, and Sneed’s thin chest hurt where he’d been thrown against the wheel. He pulled himself up, saw that a light post was upended over the hood. The car had hit it head on.
Then terror brought him fully to life. But Todd Bassett was gone. Sylvester heard a woman yelling; then her voice was drowned in the scream of a siren, and Sneed knew that a nearby police car must have heard the rending crash of the car. The siren had driven Bassett off.
But it had left Sneed in a spot. There was the woman, and he could hear quick feet — a crowd gathering. And those cops weren’t over a block away. There’d be charges of stealing a car pressed — a jail sentence... He tumbled out of the warped door. A man yelled. People seemed to be coming from all directions, like demons converging on him. The closest man wasn’t over a hundred feet away.
And the darkness cloaked Todd Bassett...
The voices of the people, rising like the sounds in a nightmare, drove him frantic. He ran headlong across the street, cut into a driveway, and scurried across a back yard.
He was trembling, and each breath was a tearing sob. He came up on a woman quite suddenly and she screamed. He turned, plowed into a wooden fence, and scrambled over it.
Four blocks away a grain of sanity began to return. He slowed, stepped out of an alley, on a lighted street. He mopped the side of his face with a handkerchief where he’d hit the wooden fence. He tried to walk casually.
He knew now that he’d only made matters worse. He had got free of the stolen car, but he was still not free of Todd Bassett. And he couldn’t go back to the wreck now. What could he tell them? How could he explain?
He caught a bus and went home.
The house was totally dark, and it made him feel very forlorn. He’d have traded his right arm at that moment for Maggie’s warm, plump presence.
He scouted the house, listening, his body bent, at a basement window. There was no sound, and he went to the back door, let himself in with a key.
He said, “Maggie?” But he didn’t hear anything, and he knew he’d only tried to say it. Nothing had come out. He made a stronger effort, croaking, “Maggie?” He started from room to room.
She was gone.
He came down to the living room, absently picked up a pipe and lighted it. He could go to Maggie’s mother’s house over on Devon street. But he flinched from that. It might not do any good; Maggie would take her own time about coming back, probably longer if he went and made a scene. And he couldn’t help making a scene with Maggie’s old man. Too, he was a little afraid that in his present mood he’d not let the old man browbeat him. He might even tell the old man where to get off. That might prove to be disastrous later.
He decided not to rock the boat. After the episode in the car, Todd Bassett might be scared off. He was sure that Maggie would be back sometime tomorrow. She’d have dinner cooked tomorrow night, her tongue as acid as ever. The best thing, Sneed decided, was for him to go to his room, lock the doors and windows, and go to bed.
He went down the hall, paused and listened at the basement door. He started down the basement steps, clicking the light on by the switch at the top of the steps. His feet tingled, as if he was walking on hot coals.
He reached the bottom of the steps, peeked into the basement, poised for instant flight. Then he went toward the furnace, wondering how many seconds it would take him to stoke it and get to his room.
He watched the corners, thinking of the Roland child that Bassett had kidnapped for fifty thousand dollars, the railroad man named Farnum he’d killed. Sneed had known Farnum...
He opened the stoker, picked up a shovel, drew it back to swing it into the coal in the bin near the furnace, and that’s the way he stayed, like a statue, the shovel drawn back. Every drop of his blood congealed, literally ran cold. He didn’t breath. He stared at the shoe.
It was a man’s shoe, and it protruded from the coal, and Sneed could see the ankle it was attached to. An ankle sprinkled with coal dust.
Sneed’s aching eyes blurred, focused, and his gaze moved slowly, hypnotically, up the mound of coal. He saw a hand with a heavy ring on the little finger. Then he saw the face. It was the face of Mr. Herbert Allenby, and it had a faintly comical look, with coal dust sifted about the nostrils, his mouth, and eyes. Except it was a horrible comedy, for his mouth and eyes were open and there was a messy mixture of black dust and blood on his temple.
Sneed could hear his nerves crackling like wires overloaded with electricity. It didn’t make sense. There was no reason why Allenby should be dead here in this basement. He saw Sneed only mornings, had moved in up the street only six weeks ago. He’d been nice, Sneed thought, his brain crazily amplifying that thought above the thousands that poured out of it. Allenby had been nice, had kidded about wanting to buy this house which had stood vacant a long time before Sneed moved in a year ago, and now he was dead.
Did only nice people get in trouble?
He moved his legs stiffly. He wasn’t holding the shovel now, but he didn’t remember dropping it. He barked toward the stairs, watching Herbert Allenby’s face.
Woodenly, he went up the stairs backward, slamming the door at the top with all his strength, then leaning against it, panting.
Weaving like a drunken man, he turned and went down the hall. He had only one thought — to get out of the house. He knew he had the choice of the police or a killer stalking in the deep well of night. The police he dreaded more. There was only one killer, but the police were everywhere. That sight in the basement wouldn’t look so good to them. They’d learn that Sneed had seen Allenby occasionally, and with Allenby dead there in the basement... Sneed had heard of third degrees. No telling what the police would make him say.