The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six Read Free Page B

where that came from! I’ll go get things ready, and then we’ll eat. We’ll just stay home tonight.”
    She had good legs, and the seams in her stockings were straight. He was cold. Maybe the drink would fix him up. He drank half of it at a gulp. It was lousy whisky, lousy—The words of the bartender at Eddie’s came back to him. “Take your own bottle,” he had said, “and pour your own drinks.” He stared at the glass, put it down suddenly:
    He sat down abruptly. She would be coming in soon. He glanced hastily around, then took the drink and reaching back under the divan, poured it, little by little, over the thick carpet. When she came back into the room, he was sitting there holding his empty glass. “Thanks,” he commented. “Let me get some for
you.
”
    She smiled, but her eyes were still cold and calculating. She seemed to be measuring him as she took the glass from his hand. “I’ll just fill this up again. Why don’t you lie down?”
    “All right,” he said, and suddenly made up his mind. He would not wait. It would be now. She might—
    If he passed out, she would open his billfold, and in his billfold was his identification! He started to get up, but the room seemed to spin. He sat down, suddenly filled with panic. He was going; he—He got his hand into his pocket, fumbled for the identification card. He got it out of the window in the billfold and shoved it down in another pocket. The money wasn’t much, only—
             
    H E HAD BEEN HEARING voices, a girl’s and a man’s for some time. The girl was speaking now. “I don’t care where you drop him. Just take him out of here. The fool didn’t have half the money he had the other night! Not half! All this trouble for a lousy forty bucks! Why, I’d bet he had—What’s the matter?”
    “Hey!” The man’s voice was hoarse. “Do you know who this is?”
    “Who it is? What does it matter?”
    Fordyce lay very still. Slowly but surely he was recovering his senses. He could hear the man move back.
    “I don’t want this, Gracie. Take back your sawbuck. This is
hot!
I want no part of him! None at all!”
    “What’s the matter?” She was coming forward. “What have you got there?”
    “Don’t kid me!” His voice was hoarse with anger. “I’m getting out of here! Just you try to ring me in on your dirty work!”
    “Johnny, have you gone nuts? What’s the matter?” Her voice was strident.
    “You mean you don’t know who this is? This is Fordyce, the guy who knocked off Bill.”
    There was dead silence while she absorbed that. Fordyce heard a crackle of paper. That letter—it had been in his pocket. It must have fallen out.
    “Fordyce.” She sounded stunned. “He must have found out where I was! How the—” Her voice died away.
    “I’m getting out of here. I want no part of killing a guy.”
    “Don’t be a fool!” She was angry. “I didn’t know who the sap was. I met him at Eddie’s. He flashed a roll, and I just figured it was an easy take.”
    “What gives, Gracie?” The man’s voice was prying. “What’s behind this?”
    “Ah, I just was going to take the sap for plenty, that’s all.” She stopped talking, then started again. “Bill saw him grab a wallet some guy dropped. This guy didn’t return it, so Bill shook him for half of it. Then Bill figured on more, and he wouldn’t stand for it.”
    “So you moved in?”
    “Why not? He didn’t know who I was or where I was. What I can’t figure is how he found out. The guy must be psychic.”
    Arthur Fordyce kept his eyes closed and listened. While he listened, his mind was working. He was a fool. An insane fool. How could he ever have conceived the idea of murder? He knew now he could never have done it, never. It wasn’t in him to kill or even to plan so cold-bloodedly. Suddenly, all he wanted was to get out, to get away without trouble. Should he lie still and wait to find out what would happen? Or should he get up and try to bluff it