MR. TRIM BADE them goodbye on the cement walk that led through the palms to the front entrance of the Las Dunas. Sin flatly refused to enter the lobby where Gayner or Vernon might be waiting. After a moment’s thought, John Henry agreed.
So the Conovers sauntered innocently along the front of the hotel’s south wing. Then, with a hurried backward glance, they turned the corner and plunged into the shrubbery that fringed the building.
“Do you think anybody saw us, Johnny?”
“Hope not,” muttered John Henry. He pushed a path through the clawing branches for his wife. Trying to think out the best thing to do hadn’t helped his headache any. The dangers of the morning — particularly to Sin — had sobered him more than he cared to admit. Last night, they had been merely bystanders to Anglin’s murder. Today, they were virtually fugitives — possibly already marked as victims by some unknown hand.
“We’ll get the baggage to our car and beat it,” he outlined. “I’ll phone what we know to Lay from some other town. The main thing is to get you safe, Sin.”
Within view was the curving path which would guide them to the cottages. It was silent and deserted. John Henry held the last branches apart for Sin. The grass they hurried across was lifeless in the hot afternoon sun and lackadaisical bees sparred with the flowers. The flagstones leading up the canyon gave off ripples of heat.
Sin stopped in her tracks and squeezed his arm hard. “Johnny — look!”
Slouched on the porch of Cottage 14 was a familiar uniformed figure. It was Vernon. He was watching the path and his mournful face split into a pitying grin at the sight of the Conovers. He got to his feet.
John Henry hesitated only a second. Then he grabbed Sin by the elbow and whirled her around. “Back to the hotel,” he said under his breath. “Keep going!” She had to quicken to a little trot to keep up with him.
“Gayner,” she panted. “He might be there!”
“They can’t do anything in the lobby. Not right there with people around.”
“Honey, I’m scared!”
Vernon was matching them stride for stride. They reached the sunken patio. Sheltered beneath umbrella shade, two old men looked up curiously from behind their newspapers. There were no other loungers.
The Conovers pounded up the wide steps to the glass doors. They were halfway across the cool lobby when a thin length was framed on the front steps in the opposite glass portal. Gayner was just entering, his cadaverous face startled. His long arms came up, shoving the doors open.
Sin gasped out a little shriek. John Henry cast a lightning glance around. Except for the boyish clerk behind the mahogany counter, the lobby was empty. Both exits were blocked and the clerk was an unknown quantity. Without slackening pace, Conover swung his wife about and they headed at right angles for the elevator.
Gayner stepped into the lobby from the front just as Vernon clattered up the steps on the other side. The two men traded glances and started in pursuit of the fleeing couple.
John Henry half-hurled Sin into the open elevator. “Up!” he snapped and jumped in after her. He stopped in dismay.
“Johnny,” Sin moaned, “there’s no operator!”
His eyes rambled frantically over the control panel. The elevator was designed to function for either the individual guest or a professional operator, evidently depending on the time of day and the pressure of passengers. Now, the determining lever was set in the drive-yourself slot. John Henry made up his mind in a split second.
He threw the sliding doors together just in time to avoid Gayner’s clutching hands. Blindly, he pushed one of the black buttons on the panel. Machinery whirred, the elevator jerked and began to grind upward smoothly.
John Henry let out all his breath in a long shuddering sigh. His legs felt weak and he sought support on the operator’s stool. He looked at his wife. Sin was crouching in a back corner of the cage, her head buried in her arms.
“Buck up, honey,” John Henry said as stoutly as he could manage. “We’re doing all right.” He almost added, “ — for a while,” but changed his mind.
The elevator came to a stop at the fourth floor. Conover heaved himself hastily off the stool and began helping Sin to her feet. She was trembling violently.
“It’s okay, honey,” John Henry said soothingly. He reached out a hand to open the sliding doors.
The elevator started down again.
Conover stood poised with one hand still outstretched as he fixed blank eyes on the control panel. The light marked “1” glowed an insistent red.
“What is it, Johnny? What is it? Are they going to get us?” Sin babbled by his side. Then he realized what was going on. When the elevator had stopped, Gayner or Vernon had pushed the “down” demand button on the main floor. Since the doors had been closed, the elevator had responded automatically to the command. Wildly, John Henry began punching at all the black buttons. The car continued its slow inexorable descent toward the waiting gunmen.
Sin began to wail in earnest as she recognized the despair on her husband’s face. They passed the second floor. Next stop was the lobby.
Then, at the bottom of the panel, John Henry saw the red button. It was so conspicuous it angered him. He closed his eyes in enraged prayer and jabbed it.
The elevator jarred to an abrupt halt between floors.
Immediately, John Henry pushed one of the black buttons again. He shouted in exultation as the cage surged upward obediently. Laughing, he seized Sin by the waist. “We’re still winning, sweetheart!” he cried. “Get out the minute it stops!”
Sin nodded silently, not daring to trust her voice.
The elevator stopped at the third floor. At once, John Henry forced the doors apart and they bounded out onto the lush carpeting of the hallway. As the doors slid to behind them the elevator clanked immediately and started down again. Apparently Gayner and Vernon still hoped to catch the Conovers in the cage.
“Where to now?” Sin asked tremulously.
John Henry pressed perspiring hands against his temples. The headache was gone. There hadn’t been time for it. His brain wanted to operate in slow motion. They had momentarily baffled their pursuers — but what next?
“Can’t we phone for help? Tell me what to do, please, honey!”
Sin’s fright spurred his mind. “A call’d be stopped at the switchboard. Look — if we get separated, I’ll meet you in the parking lot where our car is — ”
“But our clothes — ” ended there was some more clawing shrubbery and then they burst suddenly into the Las Dunas parking lot to run for their car. The Chevrolet was beautiful in familiarity.
John Henry halted his glad reach for the door handle. He felt in his left-hand trousers pocket, then rummaged through all his other pockets. “Oh, no!” he said bitterly.
“What is it?” cried Sin.
“The keys. When Faye searched me, she stole the keys to our car!”
Sin let out a wail of fresh panic. John Henry peered into the useless sedan. The back seat cushion was askew and the door to the glove compartment hung open. The car, like their baggage and himself, had been thoroughly ransacked.
“Don’t let them get me!” Sin’s voice had a tremulo.
John Henry gnawed his lip and thought about using a hairpin to turn on the ignition. He gave it up. He’d never tried it or seen it done outside of movies and there wasn’t time to experiment now. He pulled Sin aimlessly along the silent row of automobiles.
“Let’s look for one with the keys in it,” he snapped, trying to inject hope into his voice. Nobody in his right mind left his keys in his car — not these days — certainly not in Azure. “ — den of thieves,” growled John Henry, ignoring the nature of their present mission. The Conovers galloped down the double-parked row, glancing nervously in through car windows. They had rounded the row and were starting back toward the shrubbery on the other side when the shout came.
They stopped as if rooted. It was Gayner’s voice and it came from the opposite side of the gallery of automobiles.
“Vernon,” he was calling, “get a move on! They must be around somewhere!”
Sin gave a little moan and sank toward the gravel as if her legs had melted. John Henry held her up with one hand. After a final look around at the unco-operative surroundings, he opened the car door nearest his hand — a convertible coupé with the top up — and thrust his trembling wife inside. He crept after her and shut the door quietly behind him.
“See ‘em?” Vernon’s question came from four or five cars away. Gayner replied something that John Henry couldn’t make out. Sin was curled along the red-leather seat, breathing in little whimpers. He jabbed her with his elbow and put a warning finger to his lips.
“Okay,” Vernon’s voice came again. “I’ll look over here, but it’s no use.”
“Johnny — ” Sin began in a loud whisper.
John Henry jumped and turned cold. He jabbed her again. “Quiet!” he breathed.
“But, Johnny — ” He scowled his blackest and she subsided, whispering, “All I wanted to say was that the keys — ”
“Will you keep quiet?” John Henry listened for a shuddering second, then he whipped his head around. “What’s that about keys?”
Sin pointed a finger. From the dashboard, a chain with several keys trailed down from another key which was half-buried in the ignition switch. The feeling surged over John Henry that he had been here before. He craned his head at the registration slip and his lips tightened. The name on the white slip of paper was Faye Jordan.
“I might have known,” he muttered. Sin squeezed his arm. Gravel ground against gravel as shoes crunched closer to them. John Henry’s breath was trapped in his throat. Somebody — either Vernon or Gayner or both — was coming slowly up the column of cars, probably peering into each one with gun ready.
“ — forgive us our debts — ” Sin was moaning into his ear, frightenedly. All John Henry could think of was that it tickled.
It was Vernon who spoke, and he was so close that the Conovers nearly fell off the seat. “I told you they went back to the cottage.” Gayner’s severe denial came from almost directly behind the convertible. John Henry’s face bleakened. The trap was perfect now — the bellboy on one side and the assistant manager on the other. Nudging Sin to move her hips, he cautiously wormed under the steering wheel and turned the ignition on.
The coupe jolted as a body leaned against it and a freckled hand trailed along the window ledge. John Henry made a lightning calculation and went into motion before his reason had time to argue. His right foot kicked at the starter. His shoulders shoved into view and he drove his fist straight at Vernon’s startled face. That amazed face, framed in the window of the convertible, drew back and the young man caught Conover’s knuckles square in the Adam’s apple. Vernon’s profane surprise was just a squawk as he fell with a crash into the fender of the next car.
The engine exploded into life with a confident roar. Sin, hunched on the floor, was scrabbling for the emergency brake. John Henry threw in the clutch and the Mercury leaped forward, gravel spurting from its rear wheels.
Behind them, they could hear Gayner’s thin voice, yelling. The coupé swerved to the right, cut around the parked cars and hurtled without a pause onto Coachella Street. At the corner, John Henry spun the car left and gunned off down Date toward Highway 99 and escape from Azure. The streets were still semideserted, with only an occasional stroller or bicyclist to break the somnolence of the midafternoon siesta. Sin pulled herself, grunting, to the seat. “Damn my memory. Damn my memory,” she mumbled.
“Huh?”
“I’ll never remember another thing as long as I live. I’ll never go on the radio. I’ll never answer a question in public. I swear it.”
“You feeling okay, honey?”
“I guess so,” Sin admitted grudgingly. She squirmed around for a last look at the hotel. “Johnny!” she squealed.
“Hurt yourself?”
“They’re following us!”
The Mercury raced recklessly onto Highway 99. John Henry flicked his eyes at the rearview mirror and swore definitively. A big black Buick sedan danced in the polished surface. It looked like Vernon behind the wheel.
John Henry glanced at the gas gauge and swore again, this time more collectively. The tank was less than a quarter full. They’d never be able to outrun the Buick on that. Before they’d gotten halfway to Brawley they’d be out of gasoline.
Sin didn’t look at the gauge or the pursuing car. She studied her husband’s frown. “What can we do, honey?”
“Let me think a minute,” John Henry begged. He kept the accelerator flat against the floor mat. The shivering needle of the speedometer rocked past the black 60, heading for 70 with no hesitation. “Where the hell are the cops?” John Henry wanted to know, outraged. “Any other time they’d be swarming all over us. Don’t they work on Sunday?”
Sin dared another glance back. The Buick still hugged the roadway behind them. It hadn’t gained, but it hadn’t lost any ground, either.
John Henry’s cheerless face went suddenly incandescent. “The obvious thing!” he cried.
“What is it, honey?”
“The ranch!” he shouted. “There’s a crowd at the ranch. They can’t do anything to us in a crowd.”
“But, Johnny, that’s where — ”
“Faye’s back at the hotel — we’ve got her car. And Lieutenant Lay’s at the ranch, isn’t he? It’s the safest place in the world right now!”
“You decide,” said Sin in wifely fashion. “I’ll do what ever you think is best.”
The Buick seemed to be lagging behind. John Henry, keeping anxious watch in the rearview mirror, lost sight of the big black car for moments at a time as they raced up and down the rolling hillocks. The highway now curved slightly to the south. They were nearly to the dirt road which led to the Bar C Ranch. John Henry strained his eyes for the small grove of fan palms and tamaracks that marked the juncture of the two roads. At last, he sighted it, rushing at them at seventy miles an hour.
Vernon and the Buick were hidden behind a rise of ground. He jammed on the brakes, easy at first, then harder. Tires screamed in protest as the convertible checked its head-long rush and slowed down to fifty. Black streaks of rubber lined the highway behind them. Sin sat with her eyes closed and her feet braced against the floor boards, awaiting the inevitable.
John Henry braked, gassed and swung the wheel simultaneously. The Mercury bounced off Highway 99 onto the dirt road. It skidded in the soft sand, swayed sickeningly for a moment, then righted itself proudly to shoot off at right angles to the highway, fifty yards off the pavement, Conover brought the coupe to a complete stop behind the screen of trees.
Sin peeked out from behind her arms. “Johnny! What are you stopping for? They’ll — ”
“The hell with our clothes! We’ll send for them.”
John Henry seized his wife’s limp hand reassuringly and tucked it under his arm. They hastened down the wide hallway, looking from side to side for a friendly door. The rows of blank portals with discreet metal numbers were interrupted only by a stair well. At the end was a window showing the filigreed iron railing of the fire escape. “Where’s Trim’s room?” he wondered. “We might hide in there till they get tired hunting for us.”
“I don’t know,” Sin said anxiously. “Maybe we should start knocking on doors.”
John. Henry halted by the stair well, indecisive. By the window at the end of the hall, the last door opened. Sin wrapped herself around his arm so suddenly that he let out a yelp of surprise.
“Oh, Johnny — it’s him!”
The man who stepped out into the hall was Sagmon Robottom. His white suit was natty and razor-creased. In one hand he carried a sun helmet, in the other his key. Every lean plane of his dark face went astonished as he sighted the Conovers. Then his features contorted sternly and he strode forward. The hand with the key plunged into his coat pocket and stayed there, a grim bulge at his side.
John Henry cut off Sin’s incipient scream at the first syllable. Her jerked her sideways and dashed down the carpeted stairs. Stumbling, gasping with renewed terror, she followed him in his wild flight toward the second floor. Ringing again in Sin’s ears was the screech of tropical birds. Behind them, Robottom’s flat shout trailed off and was lost in the curve of the staircase.
The second floor was exactly like the third — a deserted carpeted gauntlet of reticent doors. John Henry swung around the banister and took one heedless step down toward the lobby. Then Sin was clawing him to a stop. She backed up so quickly that she stumbled and sat down heavily.
In huge relief on the stucco wall of the landing was the shadow of a man climbing the stairs. A few more steps and the person himself would come into view at the turn of the staircase. The shadow wore a pillbox hat. It might be any bellhop. Or it might be Vernon.
With a squeak, Sin was on her feet again. John Henry hustled her along the hallway. The window at the end was a curtained view of the free outdoors.
“I can’t go any farther,” Sin panted as he half-carried her along.
John Henry had no encouraging reply. He was winded, too.
He fought the window sash up and stuck his head out. The ground, a green jungle of matted shrubbery, was a long story below. His face brightened anyway.
“Out on the fire escape, Sin. Hurry!”
She scrambled awkwardly over the sill, inevitably catching her heel in the full peasant skirt. Swearing tensely, her husband followed. She clung to him on the grillwork platform. The long iron stairway was counterweighted to remain swung aloft when not in use. Sin’s unreasoning fear of heights took precedent. She eyed the meager steps in terror.
“Johnny! I can’t go down that thing!”
“Don’t argue about it now. It’s safe.”
Her tentative foot tried it out. “But it moves!” she wailed. Down the hall, John Henry could hear Vernon’s yell of triumph as he spotted the fugitives.
Conover delayed no longer. Seizing his protesting wife, he stepped out onto the swaying section of fire escape. It creaked rustily and the far end began to float toward the verdant ground. Sin’s eyes were tight shut against her husband’s lapel. Her hands clutched each other behind his back.
There was a clank and a slight bounce. The Conovers clattered down the iron steps and Sin made thankful noises when her feet reached solid earth. Freed of their weight, the staircase soared back to the second floor.
Vernon stuck his dour face out of the window above them and immediately withdrew it.
“The car — come on!” growled John Henry. They jammed their bodies into the yielding shrubbery. Oleanders clung to them with ardent hands, scratching Sin’s, bare arms and legs.
“Do you think we’re safe, Johnny?”
“I don’t know. Let’s not stop and find out.”
They trotted along the north wing of the hotel between a square-cut hedge and the stucco wall. When the hedge
John Henry waved her silent. He was half-turned in the seat, watching what he could see of the main road through the back window. There was a furious rush of sound and the Buick sedan tore by them, its driver’s eyes fixed unswervingly on the highway ahead. Vernon was alone in the car. Evidently Gayner had given up the chase.
Only when the black car had topped another hump in the ground and disappeared did John Henry blow out his breath. He grinned at his wife and let out the clutch again. The Mercury lurched forward over the uneven road. “I think we shook him for a while,” he said. “By the time he finds out we’re not in front of him, we’ll be in safe company.”
Sin dropped her shoulders back against the leather cushions. John Henry patted the closest portion of filmy blouse comfortingly and didn’t say anything. By the time she raised a face that was white under its tan, the Bar C Ranch sprawled before the windshield.
“There it is, Sin.”
“That’s a nice house, honey,” Sin said, her voice under control again.
They whisked under the log arch, up the driveway past the tamarisks and oleanders and came to a stop in the parking area. The drove of untended automobiles had vanished from the rocky pasture. “H’m,” mused John Henry, “I hope the place isn’t closed.”
They didn’t knock. John Henry had no admittance card and he didn’t want to summon Sidney. The door opened easily, sliding silently into the dim foyer of the ranch house. The Conovers stepped in tentatively.
“I don’t hear anything. You don’t hear anything, do you?” Sin pressed the point nervously.
“It’s in a back wing. That’s where everybody is.” They crept cautiously down the long gloomy corridor and John Henry pulled aside the drape. Then he felt happier. Through the heavy arched door to the gambling salon he could hear the familiar raucous song of the juke box and the clang of the slot machine just inside.
“We made it all right, honey!” he cried joyously, seizing his wife by one hand. He threw open the big door and plunged into the casino.
They stopped short on the threshold. The juke box was lit up crimsonly and blared noise of merrymaking but the great square room was empty of gamblers. All but one of the overhead fluorescent lights had been turned out. Felt covers had transformed the roulette and faro and poker tables into squat green mushrooms.
And the two men remained of the crowd that John Henry had expected to mingle with.
“Well, look who came,” said Barselou from where he stood before the one-armed bandit. He had pulled down the lever and the machine made buzzing sounds. It stopped whirring with a click and then a flood of quarters began to pour from the metal mouth.
“Jack pot,” commented the other man and got up from his impromptu seat on a covered faro table. It was the plump waiter from the Ship of the Desert, but dressed now in a brown suit. In one fat hand he held a revolver.