Sixteen

BEN TRAVIS was driving toward the railroad station area in which Bonner and the girl were believed to be trapped, when the message was relayed to him from Headquarters by radiotelephone. He kept going till he reached the next drugstore that was open. Parking, he went in to the phone booth and dialed the number of The Door.

A man answered. “Yeah?”

“Harry Eaton?”

“Speaking. Who’s this?”

“Travis. You called me at Headquarters.”

The bar owner’s voice had an excited, secretive sound to it. “Yeah. You called back fast, and a good thing. I think you owe me that favor you was talking about.”

Travis’ hand tightened around the receiver. “You’ve gotten something about Peggy Jennett?”

Eaton’s voice dropped lower, savoring the drama of the moment. “Better than that, friend. I got her.”

“Say it plain,” Travis growled.

“She’s here,” Eaton told him hurriedly. “In my bar. She’s got a gun. A .38. But no bullets for it. She wants I should get her some. I told her I had to call a guy to get ’em.”

“Stall her for fifteen minutes,” Travis told him tensely. “I’ll be there by then, waiting outside your bar. Can you hold her that long?”

“Sure. Leave it to me.”

“Let her go after fifteen minutes,” Travis told him. “Then tell her your friend can’t deliver the .38 bullets after all. Tell her whatever you like, as long as you don’t let her catch on. And don’t give her any bullets!”

“You think I’m some kind of jerk?” Eaton sounded offended.

“All right. Give me fifteen minutes to get there.”

“Will do,” Eaton said. “And Travis? Don’t forget. Play square. You owe me a favor now.”

“I owe it,” Travis agreed. “When you need it, I’ll pay it.”

He hung up the phone and hurried out of the drugstore to his car.

 

 

Peggy Jennett sat in the dim booth, away from the bar, nursing her second beer along, when Harry Eaton came out of his office. She’d taken off the scarf and stuffed it into the left-hand pocket of the raincoat she wore—still buttoned all the way to hide her nakedness.

“Okay, doll,” Eaton said, smiling as he leaned over her in the booth. “I called this friend of mine. He’s gonna see if he can come up with the .38’s you want. He’ll call me back about it in fifteen minutes or so.”

Peg looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Don’t you have them? You always kept that .38 revolver. in your desk, back when I—”

Eaton licked his lips, blinked. But be recovered quickly.

“The cops took it away from me,” he told her. “Had a little trouble here a while back and lost my license for it.”

“Oh,” she murmured, frowning. “But you’ll get the bullets?”

“This friend of mine … he’ll call me back about it, like I said.” Eaton put his hand on her shoulder gently. “But we still ain’t mentioned one thing, kid. You got to pay me for the bullets. I got to pay this friend of mine, you know.”

“I’ve got five dollars,” she told him. “That should—”

Eaton shook his head, grinning. “Cost a hell of a lot more’n that, kid.”

Her face tightened. “For just a few lousy bullets?”

“It ain’t just the bullets,” he whispered. “It’s what you’re maybe gonna use ’em for. I could get in bad trouble, giving ’em to you. That’s what costs.” He shrugged. “But if you think you can get ’em cheap somewhere else, go ahead.”

“But I’ve only got five dollars. That’s all. Honest.”

Eaton’s hand moved a little on her shoulder. His fingers dug in, just a bit. “Suppose,” he murmured, “we go in back. I always had kind of a yen for you, kid. Maybe we can settle it so you don’t have to pay me a dime.”

For a few seconds, Peg didn’t move. She just looked at his leering face.

Then she stood up slowly. “All right,” she whispered.

She followed him through the curtained doorway at the end of the bar, through the short hall that led to the bathrooms. At the end of the hall was Eaton’s office.

It was a small room with a desk, a couple of chairs, a sink in one corner, and a studio couch against one wall. Eaton closed the door and locked it, then stood there looking at her much as a cat might observe a trapped bird. He felt very pleased with himself.

“Okay, doll,” he said pointedly. “Start payin’ me.”

Expressionless, Peg unbuttoned the front of the raincoat, let it drop to the floor.

Eaton’s eyes went wide with surprise as he saw she wore nothing at all between the tops of her socks and the bottom of her black shirt. The shirt only reached down to just below her navel.

“For crissake!” Eaton murmured, eying her. His tongue crept out to lick his lips. “If that ain’t the craziest.…” Peg might have been a statue, for all the emotion that showed in her face. Her fingers went to the buttons of the black shirt.

“No,” Eaton whispered. “Leave the shirt on. It gives me a charge. A real charge.”

Peg lowered her arms, fists clenched tight. For a few moments he just looked at her.

“I used to think about you sometimes,” Eaton murmured thickly. “There’s somethin’ I always wanted to try with you.…”

 

When it was over, Eaton sat on the studio couch and allowed her to get up, watching her with a sleepy, bloated look. She stood up slowly, stiffly, her face drained of color.

“That was good,” he whispered. “Real good.”

She bent and picked up the raincoat, put it on and buttoned it in front again.

She looked at her watch. “It’s almost fifteen minutes,” she said shakily. “Your friend hasn’t called.”

“Yeah? Oh. Yeah.” He looked toward the desk phone, collecting himself. “Maybe I better call and see what gives.”

He pushed himself up off the couch and trudged to the desk, picked up the phone. With his back to her, he dialed the number of his own apartment. It began ringing at the other end. He knew there was no one there to answer.

Pressing the receiver tightly against his ear so she couldn’t hear the faint ringing sound, he waited a few seconds, then said into the phone, “Bud? This is Harry. You were supposed to—” He pretended to listen to a voice at the other end. “Oh. But you said.… Okay. Sure. But you shoulda called me back and told me.”

Eaton hung up the phone, turned to face Peggy Jennett. He raised his shoulders in a shrug, looking sorry. “Tough luck, kid. My pal couldn’t get hold of the .38 bullets after all.”

A bit nervously, he looked for anger in her.

But she showed none at all. Blankly, she said, “That’s too bad. I thought it was all set.”

Eaton sighed. “I thought so, too, kid. But that’s the breaks. Maybe you can turn up the .38’s someplace else.”

“Maybe.”

“What’d you want ’em for, anyway?” Eaton asked her. He grinned. “Gonna hold up a bank or something?”

“I just want them,” she said tonelessly. Then, with a slight change in her voice, she said, “How about a drink from your private bottle before I go out? I need it after.… You owe me that, at least.”

Eaton’s grin broadened. He was pleased to be getting off the hook that easy. “Sure,” he told her. “All you want.”

He turned and went to his desk, bent over and opened the deep side drawer to take out the Scotch bottle.

Peg came behind him, with the gun in her hand, held by the barrel. She raised it high, clubbed it down with all her strength. The gun made a nasty sound against Eaton’s skull. A small whimper escaped from him as he fell forward. His face smacked the corner of the desk top on the way down.

Peg looked down at him, lying curled on his side on the floor, unconscious. Breathing raggedly through his open mouth, blood seeping from his nose, which the desk corner had broken. She stepped over him, opened the center drawer of his desk. His snub-nosed .38 revolver was inside it.

For a moment she considered taking it, then decided against it. Instead she removed its bullets, loaded Bonner’s gun with them.

Dropping the loaded gun into her raincoat pocket, she stepped back and studied Eaton’s unconscious form. Suddenly, her face twisting, she kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could. A strangling sound escaped from his throat as the force of the kick sprawled him over on his back. She continued to look down at him, still unsatisfied. She drew back her foot again. Kicked him in the groin.

Then she tied the scarf around her head, went to the door and unlocked it, went out.

Travis was sitting in his car across the street, keeping the motor idling, when she came out of the bar. If she hadn’t paused for a moment on the sidewalk, where the light of a street lamp showed him her face clearly, he might not have realized who she was. She turned to her right and hurried off along the pavement.

Travis waited till she was a block away. Then he eased the car away from the curb after her, not turning on the headlights. Two blocks farther on, she hailed a cab and got into it. The cab went around the next corner, headed north. Travis turned on his headlights and tailed the cab.

 

Peg entered the dark office building the same way she’d left it, through the basement. She climbed the inner stairs slowly, her legs feeling more like leaden weights the nearer she got to the fifth floor. She managed to keep climbing only by concentrating on the suitcase that was waiting in the office with Bonner. On all the money inside the suitcase.

She didn’t see Bonner at first when she stepped into the unlighted office. He stood in a corner, in dark shadow. But when he saw who she was, he came toward her quickly.

“Where’s Cora?” he demanded.

Peg swallowed hard. She had to force herself to meet his suspicious eyes. “She … she wasn’t at the hospital. They said she didn’t feel good. That she left an hour ago.”

“You’re lying,” Bonner said softly. “You didn’t even go there. You lost your nerve.”

“I did go there,” Peg insisted. “But she wasn’t there. Here,” she said, reaching into the right-hand pocket of the raincoat, “take your gun back. I—”

But a hunted man’s senses become sharper than most.

And Peg’s eyes betrayed her.

Bonner lunged for her as she brought the loaded gun up out of the pocket. He grabbed at it with both hands, shoving it to one side as she fired. The slug tore through the material of his trouser, dug into the floor. He ripped the gun from her grasp.

“You devil,” he whispered, crouching.

“Walt!” she screamed. She cowered away from him, back against the wall, seeing what was in his face, the way he was holding the gun. “No! Please!”

The thunder of the gun in Bonner’s hand filled the small office.

Her hands came up to press against her bosom. Her mouth opened wide. She stared at him, her face shocked. Then the brief last expression flickered out and died. Her eyes stared at nothingness as she fell.

For a few seconds, Bonner did not move. When he finally straightened his face looked paralyzed. He turned slowly, stiffly walked to the black suitcase beside the desk.

He was reaching down for it with his left hand, the gun still held tightly in his right, when he heard the door opening behind him.

He spun around, ready to shoot. Then he saw it was Travis framed in the open door.

The two men froze where they were, their guns pointed at each other, their eyes meeting.

The body of Peggy Jennett lying between them.

It was Travis who spoke first. “That’s all, Walt,” he said gently. “No more killing. No more running.”

Bonner had to fight against the lethargy Travis’ voice induced in him, a desire to let go of his gun, close his eyes. “Get out of here,” he whispered. “Get out of my way, Ben. I’m going out of here.”

“Yes,” Travis told him. “I’m taking you out.”

Bonner shook his head slowly, stubbornly. “Ben, please,” he begged, “don’t make me kill you.”

“There are police all around this block,” Travis told him. “They’ll have heard that shot. They’ll be waiting for you to come out. You haven’t a prayer of getting through them, Walt.”

Bonner stared at Travis. For a brief moment Travis thought he was going to come to his senses.

But then Bonner whispered, “Last chance, Ben. Out of my way.”

Travis raised his left hand, palm out, toward Bonner. “Give me the gun now, Walt.” He took a step toward him.

The gun in Bonner’s hand roared.

Hot agony twisted Travis’ midsection. He fired as he fell to his knees. Fired again from his knees, bent low by the pain in his middle. The bullets flung Bonner around, hurled him against the wall, the gun flying from his hand. He clutched at the wall with his fingers, toppled away from it and crashed to the floor on his back.

Painfully, Travis crawled to him, still clutching his gun. He looked down into Bonner’s dying face.

The pain from the wound torn in his side was getting to the rest of him, making it hard to get the words out. “I didn’t want it that way, Walt. I tried not to.”

“I know,” Bonner murmured, so softly that Travis could barely bear it. “It’s all…”

Then Bonner was dead.