Stop This Man! (16 page)

“Selma!”

“Tony, look at us.” Selma’s voice was getting faster, more urgent. “I’m your kind. Anything you want, I can give you. I can—”

“Selma, I’m sick of your voice.”

“Listen to me, Tony. She’s no good for you. Look what she’s done to you, and look at her. Just a brat. A brat decked out like a woman. Christ, Tony, don’t you see. She’s nothing but a free lay. I know her kind. She’s—”

“Enough, now!”

“—flashy, dolled up, no good. Look at her, Tony. That dumb face, and—and—why, she’s got breasts twice the size of mine! It’s indecent, Tony. She oughta be—”

That’s when he hit her the second time.

She fell. When she jumped up from the floor, her big teeth were bared as if she were going to bite.

“Now you’ve done it, big shot.” She was hoarse. “I told you I wasn’t through and you can bet your last dime this is the straight stuff. You think you can get away with just about anything, huh? Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. And you know who that surprise is? The name wouldn’t mean a thing to you, but it’s Herron.”

Selma was panting now, the words stumbling out, making a mean, clattering sound.

“No, lovin’ cup, I’m not talking about a boyfriend. This is bigger than you, big shot. This guy is the FBI. You hear me? The FBI!”

Nobody moved when Selma stopped for breath, and before Catell had got the full punch of her words, she started again.

“And he’s a friend of mine, lovin’ cup, a real good friend of mine. So you better listen to what I say and do what I say, because one little word, lovin’ cup, one little word outa my sweet lips, and you can kiss the world goodbye!”

The hate that shook him was bigger than the world. It tore at his muscles, pushed through his veins with a roar, and he felt as if his skin were too small for him. Without a sound, like a snake striking, he was at Selma’s throat, shaking her, crashing her head against the mantel of the fireplace, tasting the blood where his teeth sank into his lip. At first, through the brilliant curtain of his rage, he heard nothing, saw nothing but the ugly face that blurred in front of him. Then he heard Lily’s voice, crying with a desperate pleading, “Don’t do it, don’t, Tony, please! We can leave her, Tony! Darling, I’m here, here!”

And he stopped.

The strength of his feeling was still with him, but it no longer had anything to do with Selma.

“Get dressed, Lily. Fast.” He turned the girl around and pushed her toward the door of their bedroom. Trying to follow her, he felt hands clawing at his leg.

“Let go. Damn you, let go!” He was trying to pick himself loose when Selma suddenly released his leg. She rolled back, staggered to her feet. With grotesque movements she lurched toward Catell. Her hair straggled over the contorted face, lipstick a wild smear. One shoe had come off and she limped.

“Let go?” she screeched. “Let go? Let go?”

“Not again, please!” Lily threw herself between Catell and Selma, who was reaching out with crooked nails.

“Let go?” she screeched again. “Let go?” And her nails dug into the soft shoulders of the girl. Before Catell could leap at the crazed woman, she had spun Lily around and tossed her to one side. Lily staggered back, over the shoe, and then there was a curious sound.

Gathering all his rage into the whip of his arm, Catell swung out, but the coiled thing inside him never landed, never exploded.

Lily was on the floor, face up, and yet she was not on the floor. As if suspended in space, her body angled up, gently, toward the side of the dark fireplace. Beneath her neck, where her head tilted, stood the black andiron with the spike.

There was only a slight short twisting, then the soft slump of final surrender to death.

In the first instant of seeing, of knowing, Catell heard the terrible sounds of everything that breaks, bursts, and rips apart beyond repair, and the mad turning of all that
moves, speeds, dashes about for a while, turning like a giant wheel, around, around. Then the wheel stopped.

At his side was Lily, still strangely suspended, lax now, and as always her eyes looked out in their quiet, wide way. Catell reached for her hand, then let it drop. The wheel had stopped.

Selma crept forward, staring at the two things there on the floor. “Tony,” she said.

There was no answer.

She noticed how the curtains moved in the wind, never quite making it before they collapsed again. It was hot in the apartment.

Eleven o’clock.

When she could not stand the silence any longer, she looked for her bottle. It stood where it had always stood, on a small table beside Catell. She took it, brushing up against his back.

There was some ice in the kitchen, and Selma suddenly decided she needed ice in her drink. When she came back into the room with the fireplace, Catell was still in the same place. And the other one.

“Tony,” she said.

When there was no answer, she tilted the glass and drained it.

“You need a drink, Tony.”

She splashed whisky into her glass and held it down. She moved it closer, touching the rim to his mouth.

That was the first time Catell moved. He moved sideways, avoiding the glass. That was all.

“Tony, for chrissakes. You know I’m sorry, Tony. You know that, don’t you? What do you want me to say? I know this is terrible. Tony, hey!”

She poured the rest of the whisky into the glass.

“Hey?”

Catell didn’t answer.

“There isn’t anything you can do. Or anybody, hey? This is terrible, lovin’ cup, I really mean it. But you’re making it worse. Don’t make it worse. Listen to me. Listen to Selma, lovin’ cup!”

She drank the last of the whisky. Standing in the middle of the room, she looked around. Her shoe was under the leg of the girl. Selma went over and pulled it out. She put the shoe on and poked Catell with her foot.

“You better get up now, Tony. I said—Hey, Tony, what’s the matter with you? Get up now. Hey, Tony, I know exactly what we’ll do, listen. First we get outa here and head back for Detroit. I been doing you some good there, Tony, really I have. Listen to this. We go back there, and Paar—you know Paar—he promised—Tony, now cut this out! You don’t like what I’m saying? Listen, you, Selma is the little girl what can help you, Tony. You and me got a lot of life left, you know? Tony, get up from there, for chrissakes. You trying to drive me bats? I’m not used to talking to myself. You better buck up now, Tony, up, up, up.”

Taking him under the arms, she pulled Catell off the floor. He stood without protest. He turned around, facing her.

“Tony, come on now. Now’s the time, Tony. Let’s blow outa—”

She stopped, wondering at his eyes. He was looking at her, but not really looking. Fumbling in his pocket, he pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, lit it.

“That’s it, Tony, the old get-up-and-go. Yessirree.”

He was still looking her way, but his face was unnatural. Like dead clay, even his eyes.

She smiled at him, cocking her head. Then she stepped around him with a prance, hands on hips.

“Tony boy, hey, Tony boy. Damnit, Tony, say something when a lady speaks to you. Tony boy, you have to forget all about all this here. You and me gotta start out now. I said let’s go, you sonofabitch, hear? Christ, where’s that bottle? Empty. Chrisalmighty. The cops’ll get you, lovin’ cup. The coppers! They’ll get you, and dead to rights this time. Answer me, you filthy crud, you! The coppers, I’ll call ‘em, ya hear? I’m calling them!”

Screaming the words, she ran to the phone and dialed. Catell smoked and watched her. He watched her through the whole conversation.

“So there!” She hissed the words in his face. “So there, I’ve done it, you no-good sonofabitch. The cops are coming and I don’t care! I’m sick of you, sick of you!”

Her voice, shrill and hysterical, sank to a blur. She stepped back under his cold stare, puzzled.

“They’re coming,” she repeated.

“They’re coming,” he said.

Didn’t he care? Was this the end? She started to laugh.

“Little Selma keeps her word, you bastard, even if you don’t. Washed up, Catell, and now you know it. You shoulda known before but now you know it. A no-good, washed-up has-been.”

Stepping close to him, she grabbed his lapels and tore at them with each word. “Has-been, has-been—”

Time was running out.

“You rat, you! Trying to ruin everything, aren’t you? Catell, listen to me. Where’s the gold? Open your mouth just once, before everything’s over. Where is it, you rat? The gold, where—”

For a moment Catell came alive.

“Say it, Tony, say it. We can still—”

With a wooden motion he reached out and pushed Selma aside. As she stumbled she saw him move away, like an automaton, his back to her, walking to the door. He wasn’t waiting for her, and in her haste to follow him she fell again, her hand touching a cold leg. Hysteria ripped at her throat and her scream was like a knife.

Catell was gone when they got there.

Twelve o’clock.

“He won’t get away, you know that.”

Driving with one hand and fiddling with the dials of the short-wave set with the other, the detective gave Herron a short look and then turned his attention back to the traffic.

“I don’t know any such thing,” Herron said.

“Jackie, a guy like this Catell never gets away with anything. History proves it.”

“That’s the first I heard of it,” Herron said.

“Christ, we got the whole town roped off for that bird.”

“Sure. He was gone who knows how long by the time we got to that apartment, and it took another half hour to get an intelligible answer out of that howling dervish.”

“Whirling dervish.”

“Howling. This one was howling. And then you got to figure another hour, a good hour, before your roadblocks would be anywhere near effective. But here’s the clincher, Rosen: It’s now twelve hours later and we haven’t got him yet. History be damned.”

“That’s only twelve hours—”

“Which you can add to all the time I’ve already spent missing that hood. Rosen, I am in fact getting the eerie feeling there is no such guy.”

Rosen made a sharp turn to avoid a hot rod coming the other way. Traffic was getting worse as they entered the downtown area of Los Angeles.

“Listen, Jackie, that was no ghost what knocked off that one we found on the floor.”

“What makes you think Catell did it? Could have been that howling lush there, that Selma dame.”

“I don’t think so,” Rosen said. “I don’t think so at all.”

They drove in silence for a while. The air that blew in through the open windows felt gritty and hot.

“I think you’re wrong, Rosen. I think it was that Selma dame. That is, not counting the chance it was one of those weird accidents.”

“Crap,” Rosen said. After a while: “Wanna know why I say it was Catell? Because of his record. He’s a longtime heavy, he’s ruthless and vicious, he never showed any feeling for anybody yet who got in his way, his whole history proves it.”

“You know a hell of a lot for never having run into the guy.”

“I know crooks, Jackie. But I shouldn’t brag. What makes this so simple is the circumstances of the crime. Here he was, laying this young thing, when in walked his moll. Now this young one was probably just a one-night stand, picked her up at that Pink Shell, but this don’t cut no ice with that other dame. They all start screaming, and Catell gets annoyed. I can just see him get mad there. But all this time his real sympathies are, of course, with his old-time sweetheart, see? When the one-night stand gets the drift, she starts getting vicious. You know how those little blonde spitfires can be. And that’s when Catell has too much. He grabs this dish, the young one, and throws her back into—onto—anyway, you saw it. Now the other one starts to howl. Catell has enough of her too, it looks like, being a woman hater deep down anyway, and starts slapping her around, right? She won’t stop, so he just ups and walks out. He’s the real filth, and this proves it.”

“Christ,” Herron said. “You live too close to Hollywood.”

Rosen turned into the police garage. “Anyway, that’s how I feel about it. And also it might be true, Jackie, it might be true.”

Rosen had parked the car and they went upstairs. The inside of the police station was cool. Herron kept moving his shoulder blades to keep the wet shirt from sticking to his back, but it didn’t help. He took off his jacket and pulled at the shirt with his fingers. They went into one of the offices and sat down.

“I’ll see what’s new,” Rosen said, and he called the switchboard.

Herron took his hat off, fanning himself. His moist hair started to itch and he rubbed his head. He knew that when his hair was wet or sticky, the balding scalp showed up more. Self-consciously he put the hat back on.

“Nothing,” Rosen said, putting the phone down. “They should have another interview out of that Selma.” Herron lit a cigarette.

“Interview! You shoulda been there when we tried to question that dame. Interview!”

The door opened and a policeman with shirt sleeves rolled up came in. He was carrying a folder.

“Infirmary sent this over. For you, Herron.” He threw the folder on the desk and went out.

“Infirmary?” Herron started to open the folder.

“Probably another
interview.
That’s where we took your friend Selma. The state she was in—”

“She sick or something?”

“All I know is they were sedating her when we left. What’s it say?”

Herron leafed through the papers in the folder and pulled out one of the sheets.

“Here’s a tentative medical report: ‘…alcoholic, hallucinatory.
Severe hysterical state makes diagnosis difficult at present.’ Then something here—hallucinosis.”

“That’s the d.t.’s, the heeby-jeebies.”

“No. Not hallucinosis. It’s worse.”

“Crap. Probably she just needs a drink.”

Without answering, Herron went through the rest of the papers.

“Here it says ‘Interview’ and today’s date. This morning.” Herron read on. “What kind of an interview! Listen to this, Rosen: ‘Q: Did you push the victim? A: Dash. Q: Did Catell push the girl? A: Dash. Q. Was he trying to assault the girl? A: Dash. Q: Was the girl known to you? A: Dash.’ What in hell are all these dashes for? What kind of a—”

“They probably mean: ‘She screams.’”

“So at least let ‘em put that down instead of those crazy—Wait, here’s a note: ‘Where answer is followed by dash, witness screamed.’”

Rosen laughed, slapping himself on the thigh. “Witness screamed. Boy, that’s hot. She’s a witness!”

“So shut up already. She was there, wasn’t she?”

“That makes her a witness? Christ. She was probably witnessing bats, snakes, and elephants, all waltzing along the molding on top of the room.”

“Wait, here are some answers. She says: ‘So he came down the long chimney, all covered with snow and the loveliest kind of horsehair—’ What the hell?”

“Go on, Jackie, go on. This is interesting.”

“Rosen, will you be serious a minute?”

“So go on. There he was and here she was. What happened next?”

“Nothing. She stops. There’s another dash.”

“Scream, no doubt.”

“Rosen, do you know how important that Selma is in
all this? Besides, I don’t think it’s so funny, all this she’s going through. Anyway, here’s more: ‘I tried to tell him I loved him but the slimy sonofabitch just turned around and out he goes. I love him, I tell ya. Jeesis, I want him around. Come back, Jackie—come back, Otto—come back—’ Then she goes on with all kinds of names. Wait. Jackie Herron! She’s got my name in here too!”

“I told ya, Jackie. All she needs is a drink.”

“Why don’t you shut up?”

Herron started to flutter the pages irritably, trying to find one sane clue in that demented interview,

“Here, wait. She gives places: ‘Santa Monica, Manitou, Toulouse, Louse, House, Grouse—’ Off again, I guess.” Herron put the papers down and leaned back. “Guess we gotta do our own figuring.”

“Any notion where he’s heading?”

“No. South, probably.”

“To get his gold or just to get away?”

“Both, I guess. It’s probably the same to him.”

Southeast of the city a shivering man sat crouched behind the wheel of a big car, roaring over the hot highway, and thinking of nothing. He just drove. With the dull, single-minded determination of an animal he held out against the terrible weakness that liquefied his bones and made his muscles like dead meat. He was thinking of nothing, but he drove toward the desert.

“Anything come in during the last three hours?” Herron stood behind the man at the short-wave set. The monotonous garble of police calls and report messages filled the room, but none of it interested Herron, because none of it told him anything about Tony Catell.

“Hold it, Mr. Herron, here’s something now.” The
man scribbled notes, then took his earphones off. “Man answering description of Catell gassed up at this crossroad here. Take a look at the map. Looks like he’s going to Palm Springs, maybe? He had a stained bandage on one hand.”

“This sounds like it. Relay that. I’m going to take a cruiser up there.”

Rosen drove with Herron. They kept the short-wave on but nothing new came on.

“Bet that murdering bum is plenty scared by now.” Rosen turned the siren on to get himself a clear way through the traffic. “If he’s really in that neck of the woods, he must have slipped two of our checkpoints. How in hell he did it, I don’t know.”

“You underestimate those types, Rosen. When they want something, they’re driven by furies, and nothing gets in their way.”

Catell knew he was close to the place but it meant nothing to him, except that he was close to the place. Not any more. His awareness of things was automatic, and his actions merely coasted on the strength of what had been planned long in the past. So he looked as though he were coming from somewhere and going somewhere, but since he had left the apartment, far back sometime in Santa Monica, there had been no will in him. The wheel had stopped turning.

“You know what’s going to happen if that bird ever leaves the highway, don’t ya?” Rosen said.

“What? We lose him?”

“That’s right. We lose him.”

“Catell’s a city boy, don’t forget. He wouldn’t hole up
out there someplace. He wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“My guess is he isn’t going to stop for anything. He needs distance, Rosen. He’s trying to get away as fast and as far as possible. And not just from us. From the mess he left, too.”

Rosen and Herron were on the highway now, traveling at a good clip toward the darkening east.

“Think they’ll snag him before dark, Rosen?”

“Ought to. Look at the map. Blocked here, here, here. Even this burg here, Joiner’s Creek, they even got an alert out for him there.”

“Not that it matters,” Herron said “If I know my city boys, they’ll always stick to the highway and rely on a fast car. And Catell’s no different.”

The rutted side road wound through a landscape of caked dirt and dry sage. Every so often there were rocks. Catell never slowed down. He had started with high speed; he had stayed with it. He did what he was doing because he was doing it.

When the road dipped he saw the green trees for a moment. They were some distance off, but they meant that Joiner’s Creek was there. Catell slowed down, looking. With a sudden twist he pulled the car off the road, bumped over the sage that rattled under the car, and stopped beside a gray outcropping of rock.

Catell got out of the car and walked around the rock to a place where the stone sank vertically into the ground. Squinting in the failing light, Catell stooped low, walking, then stopped. He went to his knees.

For a faint moment the old fire tried to leap in him again, but there was no fuel to feed it, and it died.

Catell just dug.

When his nails hit the metal, he reached down, felt the handle, and pulled out the dented cartridge box. He carried it to the car and set it on the floor in the back. Then he drove away.

Herron had slept badly and the morning sun coming up over the flat land felt like a sledgehammer. He left the cabin and walked across the gravel court to the diner. Rosen was already there, working on a cheeseburger and French fries.

“Sit down, Jackie, sit down. Ready for some breakfast?”

“Rosen, please, you trying to make me sick? And keep those potatoes out from under my nose.”

“Jeeze, you always like this in the morning?”

“I forgot my toothbrush. I thought this chase would be over before long, so like a fool I took off minus a toothbrush. Coffee, miss. Black.”

“Don’t bother buying one, Jackie. This caper is almost up. We got the planes out now. Patrol just came by and told me.”

“You talked the same way yesterday, Rosen. By now history is beginning to prove you’re wrong.”

“Crap. How can we miss? You know what this country-side looks like from up there? A pancake. Like a pockmarked pancake.”

“For chrissakes, Rosen, let me enjoy my coffee. And put those damn potatoes someplace else.”

“Sensitive, ain’t ya? Well, Jackie, I can understand that. Some guys, when they don’t have their toothbrush in the morning—”

“Aw, shut up.”

After they had drunk their coffee, Rosen pulled out a map.

“Take a look here, Jackie. We figure he’s in here, and bottled up good. Now the planes are going to spot this area there, other side of Joiner’s Creek, and over here, too. I can see that crazy hood right now, shivering behind some rock there and watching the planes overhead.”

That same afternoon the big car was racing its sharp shadow down the white highway. Catell handled the car with no wasted motion. He sat stolidly, without blinking, even though he headed south with the sun in his eyes most of the time. Sometimes he switched on the radio and listened to the police calls. But you couldn’t tell by looking at him that he knew they were chasing him farther north; he had crashed the dragnet during the night.

During the day he stopped twice. Once he stopped for gas, and the other time for water. He forgot to eat. Toward evening the heat got worse and he passed truck after truck loaded with melons, lettuce, and more melons. The Imperial Valley. The dragnet was far behind. When Catell saw the sign that said Brawley, he took the next road to the right. He avoided big towns and traffic with a sure habit, catching the main highway again on the other side.

That’s when he blew the tire. The car took a wild lurch and threw Catell sharply against the side of the door. He grabbed for the wheel, fighting it while the car bumped to a halt on the soft shoulder of the road. He got out and changed the tire. It took him only a short time, but when he straightened up from the wheel, he suddenly felt deathly tired. Waves of fuzzy blackness came and passed; his eyes burned with a purple ache. He had to lean against the car and wait for his strength to come back. Then he went back behind the wheel and started the car. The wheel with the shredded tire was left behind. It lay near the edge of the road, forgotten. Or perhaps Catell just hadn’t cared.

He should have.