A Night for Screaming Read online

  I walked around in circles until I began to remind myself of that fly on the jeep windshield. The fact that I was innocent of murder, but I’d no longer be innocent of crime if I robbed this character even in a rigged deal, didn’t seem to hoist its own weight. I had no choice. I had run because I could not prove my innocence. I still couldn’t prove it. Forty thousand dollars would take me a long way from Fred Palmer.

  Cassel laughed suddenly. He reached into the jeep, brought out a bottle of bourbon. “Okay, partner. Let’s have a drink on it.”

  I nodded. He extended the bottle. I turned it up, took a big pull at it. I hadn’t had a drink in so long, the whiskey almost knocked me off my feet.

  10

  I didn’t sleep all night. I stood at the window and stared north across that flat farm country, thinking there was one thing I could do. I could walk out of here, start walking and keep walking. Once I robbed Cassel, I’d reached the point of no return.

  I scrubbed my face with my hands. Who was I kidding? I’d already reached that point a long time ago.

  I was truly sick by the time the stoop-laborers marched up to the buses to load at seven the next morning.

  Dust boiled across the whole farmyard, almost obscuring the sky.

  There was a lot of action out here today. Huge vans were loading thousands of fine dairy cattle at the loading pens. At the buses the stoop-laborers were boarding like sheep.

  I walked across the yard to where Evans was waiting for the men to board the buses.

  Evans grinned at me, even through the gray sickness in his own face. Welcome to Sunnybrook Farm. My own illness was the empty-stomached kind. I had the helpless feeling that I was being shoved along, and there was nothing I could do, even to delay it.

  “I won’t be able to make it today, Evans,” I said.

  I must have looked gray. He frowned, troubled, genuinely concerned about me—and him with a sickness that could turn fatal at any minute.

  “What’s the matter, fellow? You better get to the infirmary. You do look bad.”

  “What’s wrong here? What’s the delay?”

  It was Cassel. I had not seen him approaching in the smoking dust, but I realized he must have planned to be here when I goofed off from work for the day.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Bart,” Howell said. “Mitch is a little under the weather. He’s going to take the day off.”

  “Oh? He is, huh?” Cassel’s voice was hard. The men stopped boarding the bus, trembling at the great man’s wrath. “You got anybody else to help you?”

  “I can get by,” Evans said.

  “The hell you can. That’s a two-man job out there. You get on that bus, Walker.”

  “The guy’s sick, Bart,” Howell said. “I can get Potter. He can help me out there today. I can get by.”

  “I won’t have it,” Cassel said. His voice was loud. It was a good scene. He was getting the message across to the laborers. “Everybody works around here. Every day. Or no pay.”

  “Look, Bart. Mitch has worked hard. No trouble. He looks bad. Let him take the day off, and he can come back tomorrow. Better to take one day than lose a week for hell’s sake.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Cassel’s voice boomed even above the loading of the cattle. “Stay in your room then, but you don’t get paid for today, by God, and that’s an order.”

  I paced the floor in my room. The sickness was worse than ever. It was like a knot in my throat now. Cassel had made it look good. Everybody in that farmyard knew I was ordered to stay in my room. He had played it well. Why not? He was playing for a quarter of a million dollars.

  My watch seemed to have stopped. I shook it, stared at the minute hand. It was running all right. It was time itself that was slowed down. The minutes crawled past. I had never seen time go so slowly. I had never heard of so many cattle being shipped at one time. The trucks rolled in an endless line out of the loading area going down the road to Highway 40.

  A hundred times I decided I couldn’t pull the job the way Cassel had outlined it. A hundred times I went over every detail. Over and over. All the time I knew I was going through with it because I had to.

  I tried to stop thinking about it, tried to concentrate on what forty grand would buy me in some Latin American country. And Palmer. He’d never find me. I’d beat Palmer. I’d be free. Hell, at that moment it looked worth it. Only what had happened to time? Why couldn’t they get through down there, and get out of here?

  The last truck rolled through the gates. I stood at the window, my heart hammering over the empty place in my stomach. Then Cassel went through the gate in his green and white station wagon. He did not slow down or look back. He was sure of what was going to happen, how it would end. I wished I had some of his confidence, or even a bottle of his bourbon.

  I wiped my hand across my mouth. He was out of here. It was time to go. I looked around the room one more time, went to the door.

  As I reached for the doorknob, somebody knocked on the facing. I stopped as if I’d been poled. I didn’t know what to do. I had no time to waste on anybody. I had to get out of here.

  I swallowed the gall in my mouth, opened the door. Somebody else had been waiting for Bart Cassel to barrel out of here in his station wagon.

  “May I come in?” Eve said.

  I stared at Cassel’s wife. Even in a sleek, form-molded knit dress, and that thick hair hobbling around her shoulders, Eve looked like all my troubles packed into one neat bundle and left on my sill.

  I tried to keep my voice level. “Howell’s room is down the hall,” I said.

  “I know where his room is.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  She looked past me, across my shoulder toward my rumpled unmade bed.

  “Everything’s a mess,” I said. “Or I’d ask you in.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “I’ll come in anyway.”

  “Look. I’m in a hurry. You got Howell. He’s one swell guy.”

  “Salt of the earth.”

  “And Barton M. Cassel. More muscle to the ounce—”

  “An ever-loving stud, that boy,” she said, voice negligent. “Now, how about you, Mitch? Don’t you know how to be friendly?”

  “I’m nothing but a big friendly clown.”

  “You don’t act friendly.”

  “It’s just that I’m in a hurry.”

  The smile faded around her mouth, and her gaze moved over me slowly. “Don’t rush out to do anything you’ll regret, Mitch.” Her voice had more meaning in it than sixty pages of scripture.

  I swallowed, tried to play it cool. “What kind of talk is that?”

  She shrugged, and turned on the smile again. The smile meant nothing. “I don’t mean anything,” she said in a voice purposely empty. “Only you. And Barton M. You two have been so friendly the last few days. Friendly. Friendly.”

  I decided to let her have it, sharp and cold. “Maybe he’s been grooming me to take over when he shoots Evans Howell.”

  Something flickered in her eyes, but she tilted her head, went on smiling. “Just be sure who your friends are, Mitch.”

  “I’m a big boy. If I want to be friends with a millionaire like Barton M. Cassel, you can’t call me anything but a snob.”

  She shrugged, moving those shoulders so the thick curls touching them bobbled slightly. “Snob, Mitch? Or slob?”

  Now I shrugged. “Sticks and stones,” I quoted.

  She laughed. “Barton M. never had a friend in his life that he didn’t skin alive.”

  “Well, think how charming I’ll look mounted in your trophy room.” I tried to move past her.

  She touched my arm. Her fingers were chilled. “Why the rush, Mitch?”

  “I told you. I’m in a hurry.”

  She did not move her hand. Instead, she tightened her fingers. “You’d have a lot more fun staying here.”

  “I’m too young to die.”

  “Who’d tell Bart? Nobody. They’d be afraid to. He’d kill anybody who said an
ything about me—even if it was true.”

  “That must give you a great sense of security.”

  “Money in the bank.”

  “Well, you better send a message out to Evans Howell. I’m too busy. Permanently, Mrs. Cassel.”

  She swung, her arm lashing upward, but I caught her wrist the instant before she connected with my face.

  I parked the jeep near the bus station just off Fort MacKeeney’s main street. I was near the bank, but on this side street were only the unbroken walls of buildings, only an occasional passer-by. This robbery was going to take place in broad daylight. But the way Cassel had figured it, it made sense to me. It had to happen fast, on a lightninglike schedule, and I had to get out of there, going back to the farm as if nothing had happened, returning by the Wild Horse entrance, as I had left.

  Something was wrong. Cassel’s green and white station wagon should have been parked diagonally across the street so that when he came out of the bank, I could accost him there. The sight of one of his own jeeps across the street should allay any suspicions, even if someone from the bank walked out with him. All I had to do was sit there, my hat shading my face, and wait until he was alone.

  Only the station wagon wasn’t there yet.

  I sweated. This was bad. Of all the angles that Cassel had considered and nailed down, neither of us had even thought I’d get to town ahead of him.

  I looked around. Traffic moved slowly on Main Street. Once in a while a car passed where I was parked. I didn’t look up, but everything depended on my having not left the farm. We even had my using the jeep nailed down. I told them in the farm garage that Cassel had asked me to check on something in the lower section, No sweat there.

  I reached for the key, wanting to turn it on and get out of there. Where was he? What could have delayed him? He’d had a thirty minute start on me. He had gone out the front gate and hit the highway. Nothing but an accident could have delayed him more than fifteen minutes on the run into Fort MacKeeney.

  I mopped the sweat away from my eyes. Where was he? Had he pulled out? Changed his mind? I knew better than that. No matter what went wrong, he wanted to lose that cash, collect from the insurance people. But where was he? It had been rough miles across that farm road to the secondary highway. I’d been careful that nobody had seen me leaving the farm area.

  The hell with sitting there. I’d drive away, come back in a few minutes.

  At that exact moment the green and white station wagon skidded around the corner off Main Street and bumped to a stop against the curb.

  I sagged back in the seat, staring at Cassel, alone in the station wagon across the street. I felt nothing except the sickness, the emptiness.

  He swung out of his car as if this were just another day like any other in his life. He glanced around, not bothering to look at me. Then he strode toward the corner and around it into the bank.

  Time stopped cold.

  Suddenly this side street was the busiest thoroughfare in town. I gripped the steering wheel to keep my hands from trembling.

  Two kids came out of the alley and started throwing a ball against the wall. I sat there not looking at them, hoping they would go away. If I didn’t look at them, they would go away. Only they didn’t. Bop. Bop. Bop. That ball against the wall. A car went by, moving slowly. I didn’t look to see who was in it, what kind of car it was. The car was gone, but the kids were still yelling over there. Bop. The ball hit the wall.

  Suddenly one of the kids caught the ball on the rebound, and in that spirit of clean, boyish cruelty threw it as far as he could up the alley.

  This kid had been reading my mind.

  The other child ran screaming along the alley, followed by his companion who was laughing and yelling at the top of his voice. I sat there, shaking, listening to their shouts mixing, vibrating inside my brain.

  Then somebody came striding around the corner off Main. It was Barton M. Cassel. I sat up, tense, my hand closing on the short two-by-four on the floor beside me.

  Then I stopped as if stunned.

  Cassel wasn’t alone.

  He was carrying a satchel in which undoubtedly there was the cash payment for the cattle. The satchel banged against his leg.

  But I was staring at the man with him.

  It was Fred Palmer.

  Hell. Who else?

  Except for that moment at the bus station loading platform, this was closer to Palmer than I had been since I had started running.

  I turned my head, tilting it so my hat shielded my face. I felt as though a thousand spots were fixed on me. Why did I think Palmer wouldn’t recognize the very shape of my shoulders?

  And the worst part of it was that I got an ache in the nape of my neck. It felt like the center bull’s-eye in a target. I couldn’t keep my head turned. I had to see what was going on over there.

  I pulled my head around slowly, painfully. They were at the station wagon now, on the other side of it

  I saw that Cassel was at least smart enough to stand so that in order to face him, Palmer had to put his back to me.

  I trembled, wanting to slide across that seat and walk around the corner. But any movement over here might cause Palmer to turn. I knew he’d recognize my walk.

  I turned my head, gripping the steering wheel and forced myself to go on sitting there.

  I heard a door slam on the station wagon, and I turned my head enough to see what was going on.

  Cassel was inside his station wagon, sitting under the wheel.

  Palmer was walking away toward Main, almost at the corner. I sat there and counted to five. Palmer rounded the corner.

  I closed my hand on the short two-by-four, stepped out of the jeep. No cars approached on the side street, either way.

  I kept the two-by-four just behind my right leg as I walked. I didn’t even want Cassel looking at it, anticipating it, trying to ward it off, even involuntarily.

  I started walking across the street.

  There was a sudden terribly heightened sensitivity about everything. The sun had a fierce brilliance. The cars were louder on Main. Even my own footsteps seemed to jar my ear drums. The sweat prickled my flesh along my throat and on the backs of my hands.

  I opened the back door of the station wagon and got in just as Cassel had planned it.

  “You bastard,” he snarled over his shoulder. “You took your own sweet time.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Never mind me, you son of a bitch. You just do your part of it without snarling it.”

  “Hand me that bag,” I said.

  “Don’t panic, you clown,” he said. He handed the bag over the seat. I was building up a big hate for this boy. I hated him almost as terribly as I hated myself.

  I brought that two-by-four down hard against the back of his head, harder than I’d intended, harder than he ever planned. It was as though I had to hit him as hard as I could.

  I had to get that hate out of me some way or I’d burst with it.

  I looked both ways along the street, stepped out of the station wagon, walked back to the jeep, got in, started it, and drove out of there without even looking back.

  I had to go east on Main Street. Cassel had insisted this was the most important angle of all. If anybody saw his jeep headed out Highway 40 toward the Great Plains Empire main gate, they wouldn’t give it a second thought. Nobody would recognize me in that town, but everybody would recognize his jeep. He was counting on that, banking on it. Anybody see any suspicious strangers? No. Nobody but one of Cassel’s own farmhands, in Cassel’s own jeep, going toward Cassel’s own land.

  I swung the jeep east on Main. I don’t know how many people recognized that jeep, but I know I saw a man I knew. He was standing on the curb as I drove past. I tried to turn my head, but I didn’t know if I’d been quick enough.

  Fred Palmer was staring straight at me.

  11

  I held the jeep at a lawful thirty after I drove past the Fort MacKeeney city lim
its, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to plunge that accelerator to the floor, I wanted to move faster than the wind, and keep moving, and go wherever it was the wind went.

  I had to clamp my jaws tight to keep my teeth from chattering in the heat. I hadn’t been a cop very long, but I had seen enough to know what can happen to a guy in trouble. I held the jeep at an even speed, trying to tell myself that a robbery didn’t matter much when you were already wanted for murder. But that didn’t help. I was innocent of murder, maybe inside I had been praying all along for the miracle that would clear me of that charge. But I wasn’t innocent of theft, not any more. Maybe before there’d been a chance I could stop running someday, but not anymore. Then I thought, the hell with that, at least now I can afford to run. I can run in high style.

  I glanced at the black satchel on the floor beside my leg. I tried to think about all the things I could buy, the places I could go. It didn’t do any good. Nothing helped.

  A car raced past, going toward Fort MacKeeney, the wash from it shaking the jeep. I stared across my shoulder at it, feeling an unexplained fright, and I was still shaking even after the jeep had stopped.

  That was when I saw the police cruiser. It was behind me and moving toward me as though it were on a line and I was reeling it in with frantic speed.

  I had to fight the reaction that slapped my foot down on the gas pedal. There was a chance they were after me, but there was the same chance they were on a routine patrol. If I ran, they might chase me. I looked at the satchel. If they stopped me and found this satchel, I didn’t have a chance.

  I glanced around at the flat, open country. The hot wind chilled my face.

  I checked the rearview mirror. They were close back there now. I made my decision. I held the jeep at thirty. If they tried to stop me, I’d take off across the plains. They could follow me if they dared, but I could outrun them in the jeep. But that was the desperation move. Meantime, I had to lay off the panic kick.

  They were behind me now, and then they slid past me as if riding a greased wind. They glanced toward me. I recognized Arnie and Cotton. I kept my head tilted as much as possible,