almost forgot about him.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s right. What about him?”
She glanced down at her hands, a little abashed. “Barney . . . I hope you won’t think I just used that for an excuse to . . . to . . .”
I smiled at her. “Of course not, you lovely little goose. But what about Cliffords?”
“It’s the craziest thing you ever heard of,” she said. “He’s been arrested by the F.B.I.”
Fourteen
Say something, I thought. Do something. Don’t just sit here; she’s staring at you. Look, maybe she’s the one who’s crazy. Maybe she dreams up things like that, and you’re supposed to make some remark like, ”Well, I never. . . .” We were in nine feet of water. At least nine feet, and he lost consciousness, and was sinking to the bottom. . . .
“Arrested him:” I asked stupidly, “Why?”
“I told you it was crazy,” she said calmly. “You’ll never believe it. You remember a man named Haig that held up a bank, a year or so ago? He got away with a lot of money, and then they lost him.”
A flight of jet planes roared around inside me, and any moment they would fly out through the top of my head. Maybe they would light up and spell out something.
“I think I read about it.” I could hear myself going on with the conversation, and I sounded all right. “But what did Cliffords have to do with that?”
“He had the money,” she explained with the serene logic of the utter lunatic. “How he got it is kind of a long story, but anyway they found it out and arrested him.”
“Let me get this straight,” I interrupted. “You mean the F.B.I, told you they’d arrested . . .”
“No,” she said calmly. “Mr. Cliffords told me.”
They tapped the frame then. All the little pieces turned over and the picture was there entire, complete down to the last brush stroke. Even as I felt myself going numb. I had to admit there was a terrible sort of beauty about it that was fascinating. Cliffords had sent me to the electric chair, and the way he had done it was consistent and utterly predictable if you knew him. He was proud of being arrested by the F.B.I.
So I had heard a motor start.
“Tell me about it,” I said. It didn’t seem to make much difference now, but it would be interesting to learn what she was doing up there. I didn’t have anywhere to go, anyway. Even thinking about trying to run was farcical.
“Could I have a cigarette?” she asked.
“Sure.”
We each took one, and I lit them.
She smiled at me with a kind of shy delight above the flame of the lighter and said, “This is the funniest thing, actually. I mean . . . I never really thought I’d ever get to know you.”
“Know me?”
“Umh-umh. The first time you ever saw me was when I came in to get those motors, I guess. But I’ve seen you lots. Around Wardlow, I mean. I spend the night there once in a while with this friend of mine—she’s really my second cousin. And a friend of hers used to work for you. Barbara Renfrew. She’s the prettiest thing, isn’t she?”
“I guess so,” I said. I was going back to being crazy again. Nothing made any difference, really. Somehow Barbara Renfrew had wandered into this chase sequence and we were all going around like a clip out of a Laurel and Hardy movie—Haig, the F.B.I., Cliffords, and somebody’s second cousin. No, it was really two different stories. This taffy-maned screwball had a girlish crush on me or something, and wanted to get in line if I was no longer laying Barbara Renfrew. No wonder the poor girl had quit, I thought. Maybe they even thought Otis was sleeping with me. Well, why not? He thought I was with her. This one, I meant.
“And I think your wife is absolutely gorgeous,” she went on,
“When will she be back?”
I gave up then. The only thing to do was go back and start over. Then, suddenly, my mind began to clear again and I saw something I had overlooked before. At best, it was the most tenuous wisp of hope imaginable, but I reached out for it desperately. She had said she thought Cliffords was a little off his trolley.
”Oh,” I said. “She’s supposed to be back some time this week. But about Cliffords. When did he tell you all this?”
“Yesterday evening, up at his cabin.”
“And