Safer Dead

I’ve seen angry women in my time, but never one as angry as she was at this moment. She was as white as a fresh fall of snow and her eyes blazed like red hot embers as they say in Victorian novels.

She looked at me as if I were transparent, then looked at the tall man who was still lying on his back, although he was shaking his head and trying to get life back once more into focus, then she went out of the room, and as she passed me I felt scorched by the white-hot blast of her rage.

I sought relaxation by dipping into the gold cigarette box on the desk. I took a cigarette and lit it. One drag sent a tremor up to my memory. Egyptian Abdulla. I looked at the cigarette to make sure, then I looked at the tall man who was by now dragging himself to his feet. I remembered Bernie’s description of the mysterious Henry Rutland: over six foot, lean, suntanned, eyebrow moustache and a gold link bracelet on one wrist and a gold strap watch on the other.

This guy had a gold bracelet on his left wrist and a gold strap watch on his right. Even without the gold ornaments, the description fitted him like a glove.

But this seemed scarcely the time to step up, shake him by the hand and say, ‘Henry Rutland I presume.’

This seemed to me to be the time to ease myself out of the room, turn my discovery over in my mind at leisure and decide how best to make use of it.

As Royce staggered to his feet, clutching on to the desk for support, I took two steps towards the door, then paused.

The door had opened silently. Standing in the doorway, his swarthy, cruel face hard and set was Juan. In his right hand he held a .38 automatic and it was pointing at me.

II

For a long moment we stared at each other, then he stepped into the room and closed the door, setting his back against it. Royce sat down behind his desk. His fingers touched the side of his jaw. His eyes brooded death.

‘Find out who he is,’ he said.

Juan held out his left hand.

‘Wallet,’ he said, ‘and snap it up.’

I took out my wallet and handed it to him. He found he couldn’t examine it and keep me covered by the gun, so he lowered the gun which was a foolish move. He also took his eyes off me. He was either full of confidence or a bonehead. I didn’t pause to inquire. I hung a right hook on his jaw. I don’t think I’ve ever hit a guy as hard as I hit Juan. The jar that ran up my arm as my fist connected pained me a lot more than it pained him. He went out like a light and I just managed to grab the gun before he hit the carpet.

I turned the gun on the tall man and smiled at him.

‘We seem to be having an exciting evening, don’t we?’ I said.

He looked at me, his face tight with rage.

‘Get out of here!’ he snarled.

‘I’m on my way. I’ll leave the gun with the guy at the gate. I’ll feel safer with it until I get clear of this joint,’ I said, scooped up my wallet and backed to the door.

He sat motionless, his hands on the desk, his face pale under the suntan. What with one thing and the other, he couldn’t have had much of an evening.

I opened the door, edged into the corridor and walked quickly to the lobby.

Suzy was waiting for me.

‘Where have you been for goodness sake?’ she said impatiently. ‘I was about to go home without you.’

‘That’s just what you are going to do,’ I said. ‘I haven’t time to explain why. Get one of the flunkeys to grab a taxi for you. I’m not even waiting for my hat.’

I stepped past her and went to the entrance and down the steps, leaving her gaping after me, too surprised even to speak.

‘Your car, sir?’ the doorman asked sharply.

‘It’s okay. I’ll collect it myself,’ I said, shoved past him and ran down the avenue to where I could see a row of cars.

I didn’t know how long it would take Mr. Royce to come into action, but the quicker I was past the guards at the gate, the safer it would be for me. I located the Buick, gave the attendant a buck and got in. As I drove fast down the drive I took the gun from my pocket and tossed it through the open window into a clump of laurels. I was remembering what Creed had said about being caught with a gun on me without a gun permit. It was a sound move for as my headlights picked out the main gates I saw they were shut.

The two guards, plus a tall, beefy looking man in a slouch hat, stood silent and still, waiting for me to arrive. I slowed down, honked on my horn in the hope they would open the gates, but they didn’t. The headlights of the car lit up the man in the slouch hat. He had cop written all over him. His red, coarse face was a mass of brutality. If you took a lump of brick-red clay, squashed it into the vague shape of a face, stuck a lump on it for a nose, carved a slit in it for a mouth and stuck two match heads in it for eyes you would have a fair portrait of this guy.

An inch or so over six foot, there was a massive power about him in the way he stood, his hands in his trench coat pockets, his great legs apart, his head a little on one side.