on a stand at my left. Barclay saw my glance and shook his head. “I shouldn’t try it,” he said. “They’re looking for you, anyway.”
“You’ve killed Macaulay,” I said. “What do you want now?”
“Mrs. Macaulay, obviously.”
“Why?”
He gestured impatiently. “Later, Manning.” He walked over to the other end of the room and stood looking around like a director inspecting a set for a scene he was going to shoot.
I could see the man lying under the edge of the coffee table. He was wearing slacks of charcoal gray and a dark-blue sport shirt, and his shoes had crepe soles. He had been ready to go when they killed him. My mind was still numb, but it could encompass that much. He was lying on his stomach with his face turned to one side, and a little blood had run from under his chest. It looked black against the rug. The face, what I could see of it, was slender, and his hair was very dark and needed cutting. I was conscious of the crazy thought that I’d been wondering for days what Macaulay would be like when I met him, and this was what he was like. He was a dead man who needed a haircut.
I turned my face and I could see her. She was slumped forward with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. What if she had told them I was coming by in the truck? They had ways of making you talk. But what did they want with her? And with me, and the boat? The whole thing was one big blank. I sat there, feeling sick.
“You cleaned your prints from everything you touched?” Barclay asked.
The thin one nodded.
“Very well,” Barclay said. “Who has the keys to her car?”
“Here.” The big blond fished them from his pocket.
“Give them to Carl,” Barclay directed crisply. “You’ll go with us in the truck.”
He shifted his gaze to the thin man. “Take the Cadillac downtown and park it. Meet us on the southeast corner of Second and Lindsay. We shall be going east, in a black panel truck, Manning driving. Get in the front seat with him. When we go in the gate at the boat yard Manning will tell the watchman you’ve come along to drive the truck back to a garage. If Manning tries a trick of any kind, don’t shoot him; kill the watchman. As soon as we’re all aboard the boat, take the truck to some all-night storage garage and leave it, under the name of Harold E. Burton, and pay six months’ storage charges in advance. Then pick up the Cadillac, drive it to the airport, and abandon it. Take a plane to New York, and tell them we should be in Tampa in three weeks to a month. Tell them how it was with Macaulay, but that we have her and it’s well under control. You have all that?”
“Check,” Carl said. He took the keys and went out.
I could see a little of it now. They were hanging it on her quite neatly. The police already wanted me, and now they’d be after her, too, for killing Macaulay. I didn’t know what Barclay wanted with her, but he had her from every angle. There was nowhere we could run.
Nine
“Here, George.”
Barclay took the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and tossed it, waddled into a ball, to the big towhead. “Put that in her mouth, so she doesn’t cry out in the alley.”
George tilted her face up and rammed the handkerchief into her mouth. Then he tied his own across it and around her neck to hold it in. She was crying softly and offered no resistance.
“Go, shall we?” Barclay said.
I saw him through dancing flickers of rage. My head was splitting and I was helpless and weak as a cat, nothing seemed to matter. “Suppose I don’t”? I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he answered crisply. “Would you like to have her knocked about a bit to convince you?”
There was nothing else to do. I stood up. George gave me a bright, hard grin, and led her past. As they started out through the archway she pulled suddenly away and tried to fall to her knees beside Macaulay. George cursed and yanked her back. Barclay watched me with his hand in the pocket of his jacket. He shook his head warningly.
“Your boy’s good,” I said.
“He’s efficient.”
“Don’t overmatch him and get him hurt,” I said. “He might lose his confidence.”
George glanced back over his shoulder at me.