We sat there, neither of us moving, while she decided if she was going to pull the trigger. I felt a tiny drop of sweat forming along my hairline.
I didn't know Sheila Brant well enough to place my life in her hands. She might have been involved in the death of AXE agent David Kirby; she might be panicky enough to kill me out of fright; hell, for all I knew, she hated all men and would enjoy sending a slug ripping into one. But I couldn't let her get away again. Inside her head was something I had to have, a secret so important that someone was determined to see that Sheila never shared it with AXE.
"You've got a lot of nerve," she said finally.
With a ragged sigh, she pulled the gun from my side and sank back against the seat. "I guess I'll have to string along with you. I don't seem to have what it takes to kill you."
"I'm glad to hear it." I took out my keys and turned the car around.
"Where are you going to take me?"
"Right now, back to Bonham. As soon as I can make proper arrangements, to a place where your life won't be in danger."
Bouncing across the field, I drove past Copper Beard, who had started to crawl toward his friends, dragging his wounded leg. Scarface was sitting at the side of the road cradling his broken arm and the man called Georgie lay curled in a motionless ball. A splendid group of All-American boys, I thought. As the car lurched across the ditch and into the highway, Sheila said, "Aren't you going to look at the man you shot, to see if he's dead?"
"No," I told her. "I know he's dead "
I gave the accelerator a shove and my battered car took off like a streak. The little AXE mechanic would have been proud of the way his baby had performed tonight, I thought. In fact, the car was about the only thing that had worked according to Hawk's well-laid plans.
I wanted to get Sheila to some secure spot under AXE jurisdiction, but first I had to call Hawk and set it up. I also had to find out what had happened to Meredith, why he had failed to show up at the hotel.
"I've never used this gun," Sheila said. "I never shot anyone. Maybe that's the reason I couldn't shoot you."
"I was hoping you had another reason. Like maybe you were growing fond of me."
"Not yet," she said. "But I suppose it could happen."
My hand touched her warm thigh. She didn't seem to mind. "Give me the gun," I said.
After a moment's hesitation, she dropped the weapon into my palm. A token of trust, I thought I was making some progress.
"Why do you want it?" she asked me.
"Just a precaution. In case you get panicky enough to point it at me again."
I slid the .38 in my left-hand pocket. The speedometer needle trembled on 70 as we raced back toward town.
"Those three men. Were they sent to kill me, Ned?"
"Their leader said no." I couldn't make out her expression in the shadowy car. "He said all they had in mind was a little friendly rape."
"And what do you have in mind for me?"
"Several things." I took a long curve without slackening speed. "Rape isn't one of them."
"Under the proper circumstances that wouldn't be necessary."
I grinned in the darkness. "How did you happen to hook up with Frank Abruze?"
"I was down and out in Vegas after failing to make it as a showgirl. He came along. He was old enough to be my father, but he had money."
"Did you know what line of business he was in?"
"I wasn't born yesterday." She was silent for a long moment. "There are a great many good-looking girls in Las Vegas scrambling for a break. I was just one of a crowd. When I found out my face wasn't my fortune, I started using my body."
I dimmed my lights as a Greyhound bus passed us, going the other way.
"I wish I was on that bus," Sheila said. "All right, Ned, I told you part of my story. Don't you think you ought to tell me yours?"
"Which part would you like first?"
"Who you are, why you came galloping out of nowhere and into my life, and how you happen to know about my relationship with Frank Abruze."
"Let's just say I work for an organization that's interested in locating Frank Abruze's killers."
"But you're not in the Mob." It was half a question.
"No. Maybe you remember a man named David Kirby. He was a friend of mine."
"I remember the name. He came to see Abruze. That happens to be all I know about your Mr. Kirby. I didn't ask Abruze questions about his business."
"Four people were killed in that cottage in the keys, but you walked out alive, Sheila. How did you manage it?"
She didn't answer me. Instead, she said, "You want me to finger the killers. In return, your organization will promise to protect me. Is that the deal?"
"That's the deal." I spotted the lights of Bonham ahead and slowed down. "What do you say?"
"I'll think it over."
"The way I see it, baby, you don't have any choice."
The town went to bed early. Only the restaurant, the bar, and the hotel remained open for business. I stopped at the darkened gas station. "What time do these people usually close?"
"Around eight o'clock. Why do you ask?"
That meant Meredith had been at least an hour and a half overdue before I left the hotel to chase the cyclists. With a flashlight in one hand and the Luger in the other, I got out of the car and prowled around the station. I finally found Meredith lying in a patch of weeds about fifteen steps beyond a pile of abandoned oil drums.
He had said he'd be careful, but he hadn't been careful enough. His throat was slashed.
Sheila came up behind me. She gasped when she saw the huddled body pinned in the beam of my light. "I know that man. He worked at the station."
I clicked off the light. "Yeah."
"But he hadn't worked here long. Who was he really, Ned?"
"Another friend of mine. He'd been watching you."
"And now he's dead." Her voice rode high, panic in it. "How are you going to protect me when your own people aren't safe?"
It was a fair question, I thought.
Sheila turned away from me and ran across a vacant lot, through knee-high weeds. Chances were she didn't know where she was going. She only knew that she wanted to get away.
I sprang after her. Wet weeds slapped my trouser legs as I ran. I could hear the girl's breath pumping loudly before I caught up with her. Lunging, I grabbed one of her arms and yanked her back toward me.
"Let me go," she panted, struggling. "I don't want your protection. I'm better off without it."
Her fingernails clawed for my face, but I caught her other wrist. Her breasts heaved against my chest and her breath was hot on my throat as she tried to wrench away. I wrapped my arms around her and forced her to stand motionless.
"Meredith made a mistake. I won't make one." I was talking softly, hoping to calm her. "I'll get you out of this town tonight. We'll go to your place and I'll make arrangements and then we'll put Bonham behind us."
"Ned." She spoke my name in a voice as low and as soft as mine. "I know what a man likes." Struggling no longer, she stood with her breasts against me, her thighs to mine. "I'll be nice to you. Oh, so very nice. But please let me go."
I wasn't insulted by her offer. She was desperate, and had resorted to her best pitch, and I couldn't blame her for that.
"You make it sound attractive. But my job is to find out what you know. I couldn't let you run off alone anyway. It would be throwing you to the wolves. Someone is very serious about putting you out of the way. Serious enough to knock off Meredith and to try to do the same with me. Serious enough to send an assassin after you, Sheila. I ran into him today in the hotel. He was packing a rifle and he intended to pick you off from a hotel window when you arrived for work."
She froze in my arms. "You think Abruze's killers did all that?"
"It figures. You are the only one who could identify them."