I'll Get You For This

  "Come in," I said. "This is Mr. Clem Kuntz. The Mr. Kuntz." I looked at the mulberry coloured face. "This is my wife. Satisfied?"

  He was looking narrowly at Clair. There was an expression of startled dismay in his eyes.

  I suddenly got what he was driving at. I grinned.

  "Not what you expected?" I said. "I bet your client told you she was hard, brassy, and on the make."

He drew in a deep breath, bowed to Clair.

  "I merely wanted to know, Mrs. Cain, if you spoke to Gray Howard on the night of his death," he said, clinging to the shreds of his dignity.

  She looked at me, shook her head.

  "Look, Mr. Kuntz," I said, "I know what you hope to establish. It's to your client's advantage if you can prove that Clair was trying to make Howard. She wasn't, and I don't think, however hard you try, you'd ever convince a jury she was. Howard was propositioning her. I wanted to fix him, but Clair didn't want a scene. We had been working hard for three months, and it was our first night out together. It was our hard luck that we should run into Howard. Clair didn't encourage him. Your client was sore because Howard couldn't keep his eyes to himself. But that didn't cause the murder. It touched it off, but it had been coming to a head for some time. A guy doesn't punch a   woman in the lace unless he's sick to death of her. It was the punch that killed Howard . . . not Clair."

  Kuntz cleared his throat, grunted.

  "I wonder if you always look like that," he said to Clair, speaking his thoughts out aloud.

  "She'll look like that at the trial, if you decide to call her," I said. "And she'll hurt your client's case if you try to make out she's a vamp."

  He passed his fat hand over his bald head, frowned. He knew when he was licked.

  "I don't think I'll call her," he said. "All right, Cain, I guess I 'm wasting time. I thought your wife would be a different type." He looked wistfully at Clair, shook his head, went.

  We breathed again. Maybe it was going to work out all right. Maybe we weren't going to get any publicity.

  The District Attorney's man was the next to call. He had a report from the State Highway cop who had arrested Lydia on the drunk while driving charge. As soon as he learned that Lydia had tried to wreck the Cadillac with me in it, he hotfooted over to see me. He said it was just the kind of evidence he wanted. It proved that Lydia was a dangerous drunk, and it'd carry a lot of weight with the jury. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was too burned up with the idea.

  The next morning the press had the story.

  They began arriving before we had breakfast, and they crawled all over us. The little guy who had tried to photograph us on the night of the murder was well in the forefront. He snarled at me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  "Hello, wise guy," he said. "So you don't like publicity? My editor will sure fix you for smashing that plate."

  Flash-lights exploded around us for the next hour. We tried to duck out of sight, but it was like a siege. When they had gone, I went upstairs, hunted out Bat's .38. I sat on the bed, cleaned, oiled and loaded it. It seemed odd to have a gun banging against my side again. I didn't like the feel of it any more. I was worried too that I was so much slower on the draw than I used to be. It was nearly four months since I pulled a gun, and I knew I'd have to get in some practice if I was going to match Bat.

  Clair found me practising.

  I pulled her down on the bed beside me.

  "I think I'll send you away," I said. "If Bat's going to start anything, he'll get at me through you. We'll have to think where you can go."

  She shook her head. "It's no use running away, darling," she said. "They may never come after us, and we'd be separated for months, waiting. Besides, they want me at the trial and things could happen then if they're going to happen at all. Let's stick together. I'd never have a moment's peace without you." She flung her arms around my neck. "I don't care what you say. I'm not going to leave you."

  I thought for a moment, decided she was right.

  "We'll wait for them," I said.

  I was expecting something pretty bad from the newspapers, but nothing as bad as the front page of the Clarion, the paper my friend the photographer worked on. They had dug up the whole story of Paradise Palms and had smeared it all over the front page with photographs of myself, Clair, the service station, Killeano and even Clairbold, the boy wonder.

I took one look, cursed.

5

  As the weeks went by and nothing happened, we gradually relaxed. But we still took precautions. I carried a gun, I continued to practice, and I regained my speed. We had a couple of fierce police dogs around the house, but no one can continue to be keyed up all the time waiting for trouble if trouble doesn't come.