The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,30

twenty-minute stop. Bonner played it very cagey; I remained in my seat while the first wave deplaned, but he went out with them. I could see the beauty of that. He could watch the ramp from inside the terminal to see if I got off or not, so he had me bottled up without being in evidence himself. But if he stayed and I got off, five minutes later he would have to follow me. Smart, I thought. I left the plane. As soon as I was inside the terminal I saw him. He was reading a newspaper, paying no attention to me. I sauntered out front to the limousines and taxis. There he was, still paying no attention.

There was no longer any doubt. Maybe I could call the police and have him picked up. No, that wouldn’t work. I had no proof whatever. He would have identification, a good story, an alibi—they couldn’t hold him ten minutes. I had to escape from him some way. But how? He was a professional and knew all the tricks; I was an amateur. Then I began to have an idea. Make it novice against novice, and I might have a chance.

We landed at Tampa at 11:40 a.m. As soon as the door was open I arose and stretched and followed the crowd into the terminal. I stood for a moment looking idly at the paperback books in the rack at the newsstand, and then drifted outside. I’d had a forlorn hope that I might catch the taxi stand with only one cab on station, but there was no such luck. There were four. The driver of the lead-off hack, however, was behind the wheel and ready to go. Bonner was just coming through the door about twenty feet to my left, lighting a cigarette and looking at everything except me. I strolled on past the line until I was abreast the lead one.

Turning quickly, I opened the door and slid in. “Downtown. Tampa,” I told the driver.

“Yes, sir.” He punched the starter. We pulled away from the loading zone. As we headed for the street I looked back. Bonner was climbing into the second cab. We had a lead of about a block. I took a twenty from my wallet and dropped it on the front seat beside the driver.

“There’s a cab following us,” I said. “Can you lose him?”

His eyes flicked downward at the money and then straight ahead. “Not if he’s a cop.”

“He’s not.”

“That’s what you say.”

“Why would he take a cab?” I asked. “There’s a sheriffs car right there at the terminal.”

He nodded. Swinging into the street, he bore down on the accelerator. “Mister, consider him lost.”

I looked back. The other cab was weaving through traffic slightly less than a block behind us now. We wouldn’t have a chance, I thought, if he had one of his fellow professionals at the wheel, but now the odds were even. No, they were a little better than even. We knew what we were going to do, but he had to wait till we’d done it to find out. It took less than ten minutes. The second time we ran a light on the amber and he tried to follow us through on the red, he locked fenders with a panel truck in the middle of the intersection.

“Nice going,” I said. “Now the Greyhound Bus terminal.”

I got out there and paid him for the meter in addition to the twenty. As soon as he was out of sight, I walked through the station and over to a taxi stand in front of a hotel, and took another cab to a Hertz agency. Thirty minutes later I was headed south on US 41 in a rented Chevrolet. There was no telling how long my luck would last, but for the moment I’d lost them.

My head began to ache again and I was having trouble staying awake. I suddenly realized it was Sunday afternoon now and I hadn’t been to bed since Friday night. When I reached Punta Gorda I pulled into a motel and slept for six hours. I rolled into Miami shortly after 2 a.m. Going out to the airport to claim my bag would be too dangerous, even if I got a porter to pick it up. Bonner would be there, or he’d have somebody watching it. I turned the car in, and took a cab to a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard, explained that my bag had got separated from me