Man On The Run Read Free Page A

freeway crash. Some screwball had tried to hold up a branch bank with a water pistol. The Mayor was laid up with Asian flu. Somebody didn’t like the schools. Somebody else thought the schools were in great shape. Then I tensed up. Here it was.
    “According to a bulletin just received, the intensive manhunt for Russell Foley, seaman from this area, has been localized this morning in the vicinity of Carlisle, on the Gulf coast some fifty miles west of Sanport. Police report a brown hat similar to the one Foley was wearing when last seen, and bearing the initials R.F., was found near the railroad station in Carlisle just after dawn, together with tracks and long skid marks in the mud beside the right-of-way, indicating he had leaped from a moving freight train. Police believe he is almost certainly hiding out somewhere in the town. All exits from the area have been closed by roadblocks set up by local police, Sheriff’s Department officers, and the Highway Patrol.
    “Foley is sought for questioning in connection with the slaying last night of Charles L. Stedman, Sanport detective, during a savage fight in Stedman’s apartment. Police, summoned by occupants of an adjoining apartment, arrived just minutes after Stedman’s assailant had left the building. When they received no answer to their knocks, they forced the door and found Stedman dead of a knife wound. The assailant, allegedly recognized as Foley by two other tenants in the building, made his way to a bar in the next block, but escaped by way of a rear exit a few moments later.
    “Foley, third mate of the Southlands Oil Company tanker Jonathan Dancy, was formerly a tenant in the same building. His estranged wife, Denise Foley, is believed to be in Reno, obtaining a divorce. When last seen he was wearing a brown gabardine suit, white shirt, brown striped tie, and the brown hat believed to be that found near the railroad tracks in Carlisle. He is described as being twenty-seven years old, six-foot-one, one hundred and ninety pounds, with coppery red hair, and blue eyes. The police are convinced his face and hands will still bear bruises and cuts suffered in the fight which preceded the stabbing.”
    That was all. I turned off the radio, feeling sick. There was no description of the knife or whatever it was he was stabbed with, and no mention of anyone else at all. It had to be somebody who was already in the apartment and knew the back way out, down the service stairs, but I hadn’t seen anybody else or even any sign of anybody. Losing my head and running when I learned he was dead had been stupid—there was no doubt of that—but it hadn’t really made it any worse. It couldn’t be any worse.
    I went out into the kitchen and poured another drink of whisky. Then fatigue, exposure, and twelve straight hours of running and being afraid hit me all at once. I grabbed another blanket, and the minute I lay down on the studio couch I melted and ran all over it. When I awoke it was still raining and gusts of wind were shoving at the house. There was about the same amount of light in the room, and for a moment I thought I’d been asleep for only a few minutes. Then I looked at my watch and saw it was after three. I was sweaty and tangled in the blankets as if I’d been thrashing and turning. I was just reaching for a cigarette when I went tense all over, listening. It was the sound of a car door being shut.
    Had they come back to prowl around some more? I sprang off the couch and slipped across to the front window. Pulling back the drape a fraction of an inch, I peered out and felt the skin tighten up between my shoulder-blades. It wasn’t the police; it was worse. The car was a blue Oldsmobile, and it was stopped in front of the garage.
    There was nowhere I could hide, and I couldn’t run, with nothing on but a blanket. There was nothing I could do but stand there helplessly and watch. No one was in the car, but I could hear the rattle of the hasp as the driver