‘You’re Joe, I take it.’
‘I’m Joe,’ he said.
‘Your trip last night can cause you a lot of accessory-after trouble, Joe.’
‘Accessory after what?’ Stephanie asked.
I smiled. ‘The fact, naturally.’
‘What fact?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said.
‘I’ll bet you don’t,’ Barter answered. ‘It doesn’t make any difference anyhow. You’re in this too deep already.’
‘In what?’
Barter turned to Stephanie. ‘In a damn stupid setup that was none of my—’
‘Shut your foul mouth,’ Stephanie snapped. ‘You’re as much to blame—’
‘If you hadn’t—’
‘Shut up!’
Barter clamped his mouth shut. He was either afraid of Stephanie, or afraid he was about to say too much in my presence.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘They’re your guests. What do we do with them?’
‘We wait for the other two,’ Stephanie said.
‘And then what?’
‘You know what.’
‘That’s what I don’t like about this,’ Barter said. ‘All because -
‘Shut up!’
‘I won’t shut up. Goddamnit, why should...?’
Stephanie slapped him suddenly and fiercely. ‘You’re filthy,’ she said. ‘You’re filthy and slimy.’ She came closer to him, and Barter shrank away as if he were expecting another blow. ‘Get out of here. Get out of this room. I haven’t forgotten, you slimy...’
‘Take it easy, Steph,’ Carlisle said.
‘Get him out of here,’ she answered. Her voice was a deadly cold whisper. Carlisle took Barter’s elbow and led him to the door. At the door, Barter turned as if he wanted to say something. Then he shook his head and went out, Carlisle after him.
‘You shouldn’t have played games with me, Mitchell,’ Stephanie said.
‘How do you know I was playing?’
‘And don’t play with me now!’ she snapped. There was anger in her eyes, and impatience. Together, they were a fearful combination. The lady had something eating her, and she wouldn’t be happy until the last bite was swallowed.
‘When does the party begin?’ I asked.
‘As far as you’re concerned,’ she said, ‘the party’s over.’
‘Who are the other two we’re waiting for?’
‘You guess.’
‘Offhand, I’d say Phil Colby and a fellow named Simms.’
‘That’s right,’ Stephanie said somewhat proudly. I didn’t know whether she was proud of my deductive ability or of her own scheming.
‘And when they get here?’
‘You tell it. You tell stories beautifully.’
‘You kill us,’ I said simply.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Why?’
Stephanie didn’t answer. She kept watching me with a small smile on her mouth.
‘You’re going to a lot of trouble for a simple thing like abduction, aren’t you?’
‘There’s a little more than abduction involved,’ Stephanie said. ‘Just a little more than that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a million-dollar business. Do you know how much a million dollars is? In a hick town like Sullivan’s Corners? I can’t let that be washed away.’
‘Who’s going to wash it away?’
‘Any number of people,’ she said. ‘But especially you four.’
‘What could we do?’
‘There’s a district attorney in this state,’ Stephanie said. ‘A smart cop would know where to find him.’
‘A smarter cop could know when the quiet payoff is due. A cop like that might want to trade his life for silence.’
She looked at me steadily. ‘Only one thing wrong there,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re not that kind of a cop.’
‘Try me,’ I said.
‘And wind up with another broken contract? Sorry.’
‘You’d rather do murder, huh?’
Stephanie didn’t answer.
‘You’d be wasting your time, anyway,’ I said. ‘The lieutenant at my precinct knows the whole story.’ Actually, he didn’t know the whole story, but Stephanie didn’t know that, and I was grabbing for straws.
‘Let him come after you,’ Stephanie said.
‘He’s a stubborn guy. He’s just liable to do it.’
‘Let him. He’ll find an automobile accident.’
A what?’
‘A car that skidded into the lake or over the gorge. A car with four occupants. You, the girl, Colby, and Simms.’
Ann drew in a sharp breath.
‘It’d never work,’ I told Stephanie.
‘I’ll chance it. You don’t throw away something you’ve worked for all your life, Mitchell. You hold onto it.’
‘There’s just one thing I’d like to hold onto,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘My life.’
Stephanie smiled. ‘You can be cute. It’s a shame.’
‘It’s a damn shame,’ I agreed.
‘If you’re going to start swearing,’ Stephanie began, and I said, ‘Oh, shit!’
The smile dropped from her mouth.
‘They’re looking for the other two now,’ she said tightly. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to find them.’
‘It might be a little more difficult than it was with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Those two haven’t been bitten by snakes.’
Chapter sixteen
That’s the end of Tony’s deposition except for the ‘Sworn to before me on this seventeenth day of July’ business at the end, which I won’t read.
I have to admit that when his call didn’t come at midnight, I began to get a little worried. I’d talked to Simms in his room as soon as I’d finished dinner and checked in. Simms told me that Lois and a redhead had boarded the 9.44 a.m. train to Davistown. From the way the stationmaster had described the redhead to him, and from the way Simms in turn described her to me, she couldn’t have been anyone but Blanche.
I’d seen Blanche in town at about two in the afternoon at the restaurant. If she’d gone to Davistown that morning, she had high- tailed it back in a hurry. And apparently without Lois. Simms was all for scouring the town until we turned up Blanche. I asked him to wait until the call from Mitchell came, and he agreed that would be the best course to follow.
I left him in his room at 11.30. I gave him my room number in case anything important came up, and I told him I’d go back upstairs to him as soon as I heard from Tony. Then I went down to wait. Midnight came too fast. Tony is a punctual guy, and when that phone didn’t ring at midnight, I began to have my first doubts. At 12.15, the phone still hadn’t rung.
Someone knocked on the door instead.
‘Who is it?’ I called.
‘Bellboy, sir,’ the voice answered, and I fell for the oldest gag in the universe and opened the door.
Tex Planett was standing in the corridor. Two deputies I’d never seen were standing behind him. The last time Planett and I had met, he was wearing his .45 in a side holster. This time, he was wearing it in his fist.
‘What for?’ I said.
‘Want to talk to you in my office.’
‘What for?’
Planett shrugged. ‘Suspicion of burglary. How’s that? Get your coat.’
I moved toward my jacket on the bed. Sandy’s revolver was in the inside pocket of that jacket.
‘Hold it, Colby,’ Planett said. He gestured to one of the deputies, and the deputy went to the jacket, frisked it for about half a second, and found the gun. He handed the gun to Planett, and the jacket to me.
‘Now put it on,’ Planett said.
I shrugged into the jacket.
‘Where’s your pal?’ he asked.
For a moment, I thought he meant Mitchell, and my hopes rose slightly. ‘What pal?’ I said.