I'll Get You For This

  She closed the door, and we stood in the dim light, listening to the cops as they pounded their way up the street.

  She fingered a ruby and gold bracelet, glanced at me.

  "Is that Mr. Whitly?" I asked, jerking my thumb in the direction of the room we had just left.

  She nodded. "Charles Whitly, the son of John Whitly, the millionaire," she said, in a hard, toneless voice. "We are very respectable people, and even the police salute us. Our friends are very respectable too. We own three motor-cars, six racehorses, a yacht, a private beach, a library of expensive books that no one reads, and lots of other very expensive and useless things. My husband plays polo ..."

  "And he won the Purple Heart," I said, shaking my head. "It sounds wonderful."

  Her lip curled. "It does. It was when I married him."

  "Yeah," I said. "Well, it isn't my idea of fun." 'It hasn't turned out to be mine either," she said, examining the bracelet.

  We could go on like this all night, so I opened the front door. I guess I'll be running along," I said. "I enjoyed meeting you, and I'm sorry about the expensive things, and I'm sorry about hitting your husband on the head."

  "Don't be sorry about that. It'll give him another topic of conversation," she said, and swayed towards me.

  "I'm still sorry," I said. Our faces were close.

  "You don't find life dull, do you?" she asked. I put my arm around her and kissed her. We stayed like that for a minute or so, then I pushed her gently away.

"Life's fine," I said, and went down the steps of the house. I didn't look back.

2

  I ran the Mercury convertible into the wooden garage next to Tim Duval's place on the waterfront. I cut the engine and the lights, shut the garage doors and walked over to the house.

  Searchlights still waved over Paradise Palms. Maybe they thought I was hiding in the sky. Every now and then a nervous cop would let off his gun. The activity was now a couple of miles away, and right where I was seemed quiet enough.

  I rapped on the door of the squat, faded house and waited. There was a long pause, then a woman's voice called from an overhead window, "Who is it?"

  "Tim around?" I asked, stepping back and peering at the white blob that looked down at me.

  "No."

  "This is Cain," I said.

  "Wait," the woman said, and a moment or so later the front door opened.

  "Where's Tim?" I asked, trying to see the woman in the darkness.

  "You'd better come in," she said, standing to one side.

  "Who are you?"

  "Tim's wife." There was pride in her voice.

  I wondered if a bunch of Law was waiting for me in the house, I didn't think so. I entered, followed her along the passage to a room at the back of the house.

  The room was square-shaped and lit by a paraffin lamp. A fishing net hung in folds along one of the walls. Slickers, a south-wester, rubber boots hung near it. There was a table, three straight-backed chairs, a plush arm-chair and a cupboard. There were other odds and ends. The place was clean. Somehow the room managed to look cosy and like home.

  Mrs. Duval was a big woman, long-legged, big-handed, big-hipped, still handsome. She looked a young forty-five, and her red-brown face was strong. Black hair, without a strand of white, capped her head like painted tar.

She eyed me over. Her china-blue eyes, deep-set, were thoughtful.

"Tim said you were all right," she said. "I hope he knows what he is talking about."

I grinned. "He's trusting," I said. "But I'm harmless enough."

  She nodded briefly. "You'd better sit," she said, and went over to the stove. "I guessed you'd be out here in a while. I kept something hot for you."

  I found I was hungry.

  "Swell," I said, sitting down.

  She threw a clean white cloth over one end of the table, set a knife and fork and then went back to the stove.

  "You men are all alike," she said, without bitterness. "You have your fun, and then come back to be fed."

  "That what Tim does?"

  "You do it too, don't you?"

  I looked at the T-bone steak she had set before me, hitched up my chair.

  "I've had a lot of fun tonight," I said, beginning to eat. "Where's Tim?"

  "He went over to Cudco Key."

  "Take the boat?"

  "He rowed. He said you might want the boat."

  "That's a long haul."

  "He'll make it."

  I tapped my plate with my knife. "I appreciate this."

She nodded, then said: "Jed Davis is out the back waiting for you. Do you want to see him?"

I frowned, then I remembered.

"The newspaper guy?"

She nodded.

"Is he okay?"

"He's a friend of Tim's," she said. "Tim picks bums for friends, but he won't bite."

I laughed. "I'll see him," I said.

She went away.

  I was half through my steak when the door opened again and a mountain of man came in. His face was round, fat and purple. His eyes small and reckless. He wore a tweed suit that looked as if he hadn't taken it off since he bought it, and that had happened a long time ago. A battered slouch hat, slightly too small for him, rested on the back of his head. He chewed a dead cigar between small, even white teeth.

  He stared at me, then came further into the room, closed the door.

  " 'Lo front page news," he said.