A Ticket to Hell Read online

  He picked up the receiver before it could ring again.

  He opened his lips, then caught himself. He held the receiver against his ear, waiting, feeling the emptiness in the pit of his belly. But he did not speak.

  The hum vibrated in his ear. He heard the distinct whisper as someone caught his breath across the wire.

  A smile pulled Ric’s mouth into a bitter line. Speak, you son of a bitch, or we’ll stand here all night.

  The line went dead.

  Ric replaced the receiver, somehow feeling better. The emptiness remained in his stomach, but his whole body was set now. There would be another move, but it would be up to them.

  He went over to the bed, got his gun from beneath the pillow. For an instant he glanced at the indentation her body had left there. He laughed sharply and thrust the gun into a shoulder holster.

  He looked around the room, unable to escape the sense of emptiness. He checked the room, dropped the cottage keys in his pocket, snapped off the lights. He stepped out into the softly lighted night, aware of people in the lounge chairs glancing up disinterestedly the way strangers do. He did not look toward the girl’s cottage.

  He walked slowly along the court trying to appear the relaxed young man with nothing on his mind. He wondered bitterly if anyone were deceived.

  He paused outside the office, dropped a nickel in the slotted container, took a Santa Fe paper from the rack.

  “Hello there.”

  Peggy was leaning against the doorway. She was wearing a peasant blouse and loose skirt. He was sure she wore nothing under them.

  He grinned at her, looking her over because she wanted him to. He said, “Hi.”

  She did not smile. Her eyes struck against his, held.

  “See you had company,” she said.

  He felt himself tighten. He kept the grin on straight.

  “Why Mother Hawk,” he said.

  “I don’t miss much.”

  “You have a swell place for it. A motel like this.”

  She flushed. “I never watch anybody—unless I like them—or unless I hate them.”

  “I can’t think why you’d like me. And I know you wouldn’t waste a beautiful evening like this hating me.”

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  “Seems unlikely.”

  “You just don’t know me very well. I could speak to Mrs. Kimball’s husband. Just a word and he’d fix your wagon.”

  Oh, hell, he thought. If they hadn’t picked this place, I’d walk out of here now. Maybe I better anyhow. Women. God knew if they’d realize what they were good for and stick to that, it would cure half the ills of the earth.

  He kept the smile in place, teasing her.

  “Mrs. Kimball?” he said.

  Her laugh was cold. “You did not even know her name?”

  He met her gaze. “She didn’t bother to tell me. It didn’t seem important.”

  Her face stiffened. “Oh, you feel fine now, don’t you?”

  He glanced toward the café beyond her office. “A little hungry.”

  “Go eat.” She spat the word at him between her teeth.

  He grinned at her, walked away from her, thinking that it was one of those things. A fool woman who didn’t even know what she was doing could blow the whole damned thing higher than Explorer I.

  He pushed open the door and entered the café, thinking he would clear out. The next time the phone rang, he’d say this motel stank and he was going to another one. When the waitress came he’d ask the name of another one close by.

  Two waitresses were seated at a rear table near the kitchen doors, talking quietly over coffee cups. There were no other patrons. The café was brightly new, with gleaming white tablecloths, with polished chrome and shining terrazzo floors.

  Ric sat down at a table near the wall. He sat and watched the cars pass on the highway until the waitress brought iced water and a menu. She was a tall thin girl with small breasts and tightly curled hair.

  “Is there another nice motel near here beside the one next door?”

  “What’s the matter? Peggy all full for the night?”

  “Just about.”

  “There’s the Cactus Ranchero. About a mile down the road.”

  He thanked her, checked the menu, then ordered. “I don’t suppose I could get a drink while I’m waiting?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged and she went away. The front door was pushed open and a tall man stepped inside. He let the door close behind him and for a moment looked the place over. The way he stood there made Ric go alert, and he felt his heart pound faster. There was a chance this was the man looking for him. It was unlikely they would just walk in like this, but on the other hand sometimes unless you were bold you lost everything. They had set up Ric as a young man with plenty of money, plenty of clothes and a swank foreign sports car. A gray-haired gentleman could approach him in a motel or a café without arousing too much interest.

  The man let his gaze pause on Ric for a moment. There was a set of warning signals going off inside him. This boy was too casual, his casualness cloaked an interest. Ric couldn’t put his finger on it, but he smelled a wrong. And he was convinced when the tall gray-haired man crossed the room without looking at Ric and sat down at the next table.

  Ric took a drink of water, looking the man over. He saw the lines of weariness about his chilled blue eyes, the fatigue on his face. His features were sharp-hewn, straight. His mouth was set in a hard line.

  “Been a hot one.”

  The voice was casual, but it was tense, too, and there was power in it. Here was the kind of man who ordered other men around.

  Ric traced his fingers along the chilled glass. He did not answer.

  “I say, it’s been hot. I really crossed some hot country.

  Had my Buick boiling. You have any trouble?”

  “I live here,” Ric said.

  The man recoiled at this and Ric expected him to call him a liar. But the waitress came then, stood between them to take the man’s order.

  When the waitress was gone, the gray-haired man picked up his knife and drew it along the tablecloth in long straight lines.

  “I ordered a steak,” he said. “Wonder if it’s any good. You take a restaurant, unless you know the restaurant— They have good steaks around here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Thought you said you lived around here?”

  Ric shook out the newspaper before him, did not answer. He read about the latest exchange of notes with Russia. He slowly read the story about the Ironfield child kidnaping. The FBI had moved in, the newspaper said, and refused to talk for publication beyond saying that they were near a solution of the case.

  “Anything new?” The man said. “In the paper.”

  Ric’s voice was sharp. “You like to read it?”

  He saw the man’s eyes chill, head tilt. He was unaccustomed to being talked to like that. He watched the anger fade, the smile replace it. Here was a boy who wanted something.

  “No. I don’t mean to intrude, mister. Just I been traveling the last few days. Drove out from the East. Haven’t had much time to stop and just gab, you know.”

  “I’m not much for talking.”

  “Funny. Woman who runs the place said this was a friendly town. I got in this afternoon. Guess I was about the third one. Sports car and a Caddy there ahead of me. You didn’t look like a native to me. Surprised me to hear you say you lived around here.”

  Ric rattled the paper again, turning the pages.

  The waitress brought his meal. The steak looked good, but Ric’s appetite had faded. He laid the paper aside and began to eat. He did not glance toward the man again.

  He could feel the man’s gaze on him.

  The man’s voice was rueful. “Funny thing. I always prided myself I could tell a lot about people. Kind of work they did. Where they were from. You look—hope you don’t mind me saying this—you look kind of pale for a native. This sun would burn anybody. And a
lso, you don’t wear one of them big hats.”

  Ric slashed off a large hunk of steak and jabbed it into his mouth so the man could not expect him to answer. He ate steadily, bolting his food. He looked at the pie when the waitress brought it, but left it untouched.

  He finished off his coffee, tossed some money on the table, folded the newspaper under his arm and walked out. He glanced once in the plate-glass window. The tall gray-haired man was watching him.

  He walked back past the office. Peggy was in at the telephone switchboard. He lengthened his stride. Friendliest town in New Mexico. Hell, he thought, people won’t let you alone even when you want them to.

  He entered his room and locked the night catch after him. He turned on the TV, watched the cowboys for a few moments and then killed the sound. He sat down in the easy chair, snapped on the lamp over his head. He turned the pages of the newspaper, reading slowly. His horoscope made him grin wryly: “Today everything is propitious for you. You have only to reach out and take what you want. You are the kind of person who takes what he wants and all the stars are with you today.”

  Whoever wrote that should go back to hawking fish. He let the paper slip out of his hands and laid his head back, staring at the ceiling. A man who took what he wanted. In a way that was true. The first trouble he’d ever got into was when he’d taken a car he’d wanted. But they’d caught him.

  He lay there and thought about that, about the car and himself, the color of the car, and the depth of his yearning. You couldn’t keep a kid from wanting nice things just by telling him he could not afford them. You could spend your life telling him, but something in him makes him want and need, and the only way open is to take.

  He was not trying to make excuses. There were no alibis. He had lived thirty years and he had learned. Oh, he had learned—the hard way. He had to lose everything that mattered. He had held Anne in his arms and he had slept with her, only not very much—not much sleep, that is. He had been to bed with her and in cars with her. He had loved her with himself and with his hand and with his mouth and with every way there was to love, but mostly with all his heart.

  He stirred in the chair, thinking, Oh, fine. Cry about the past, the loss. You spend all your lonely life needing somebody and you try to go straight for her. But they frame you, and you spend three of a five year term in prison. And when you come back she is gone, she is lost to you, and it is as though you never loved her with your hand, or with yourself, never touched her or lay beside her in a bed, or in a car. She is gone from you, and you can’t touch her, any more than you can forget her.

  He broke off the thoughts, hotly, angrily. He thought about the girl in the green suit, in the housecoat, in nothing but sun-golden flesh. He did not think about her because he wanted to, but because it was better than thinking back to Anne. He wondered if perhaps there had been something about her that reminded him of Anne, and that made him want her terribly. Was it the heap of her rounded stomach, the way her hip bones showed in pleasant ridges, or was it knowing she was untouched and ripe and waiting the way Anne had been? He did not know. He did not care. He just wanted to get out of there.

  He stood up. They had no right to do this to him, to send him here, and leave him here with his loneliness.

  He stared at the phone. Ring, damn you. Ring and say the words.

  He removed the gun from his holster, checking it, thinking about the permit to carry it. There was a laugh. He had been in jail twice when he was a punk kid before he even knew they issued permits to carry guns. It had always seemed a joke to him. This man is licensed to kill. This man is not.

  He laid the gun on the table beside the telephone. He liked it better there. It had been a long time and he could not forget it when he carried it under his shoulder.

  He heard the fists against his door. They were not knocking, they were beating. They were begging him to open it.

  He heard the terrified whisper. “Let me in. God, please let me in.”

  He did not stop to think. If he had stopped to think he would not have gone to the door. Or perhaps he was lying to himself. Perhaps he was waiting, had been waiting, breathing shallowly, knowing Handsome would come back and that she would run to him, beating on his door.

  He threw the night catch, turned the knob, felt the door thrust hard against him. He stepped back under its momentum and she ran by him, clutching at him with her hands, as though he were a boulder—or a straw.

  Chapter Ten

  Ric felt her press close against his back, so tautly he could feel her trembling against him.

  He pushed the door to close it and it was slapped out of his hand. The knob struck against the wall, making a loud snapping sound in the silent room. Martin Kimball half fell past him, carried by the momentum of his running.

  Ric caught the rebounding door and shut it quietly. When he turned the girl was still behind him, still pressed against his back as though they’d executed some intricate dance step.

  He faced Kimball in the silent room. Kimball was crouched slightly, arms apart. For the moment there was only the silence, in the cottage and in the courtyard. Ric didn’t know how many had seen them burst into his place, but trouble was piling up. He could always be sure of that.

  Kimball’s gaze raked across his wife, pulled to Ric, measuring him.

  Finally Kimball said, voice chilled and only faintly breathless, “I don’t know who you are. I got no fight with you.” He gave Ric the semblance of a charming smile. “As you can see, just a little trouble with my wife.”

  “I know.”

  He saw Martin Kimball react. It was the matter of less than a second but it showed in his face. He jerked his eyes toward Ric’s window, realizing that he could have been seen from there in the afternoon. He recovered quickly, and his mouth pulled into a twisted grin.

  “What you mean, you know?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “You got a wife you got troubles with, too?”

  “No. I got no wife.”

  Martin Kimball exhaled. He pulled his gaze from Ric’s, spoke to his wife. “All right, Eve, fun’s fun. We can’t run around parading our troubles in front of strangers.”

  “I won’t go, Martin.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Eve. Be reasonable.” Martin sounded as though he were speaking to a child.

  “I won’t go.”

  “Now, Eve, there’s nothing we can’t talk out.”

  “Then say it, Martin, and get out. I’m not going back with you.”

  Martin shook his head, his laugh exasperated. He spoke to Ric again.

  “You ever see a woman act like that? This is nothing, friend, just a little domestic quarrel. Sorry she is carrying on like this in front of you. But I’ll take her along and—”

  “I’m not going.”

  Ric said, “Maybe you better talk to me.”

  “What the hell is this? Friend, you ought to have enough sense to stay out of domestic quarrels. This doesn’t concern you.”

  Ric kept his voice low. “Well, let’s say it does. Let’s say I’m talking for your wife for the moment.”

  “You’re asking for trouble.”

  “You brought it in here. I’m just trying to keep it quiet.”

  “Then get out of the way, and stay out of this. Anything I’ve got to say, I’ll say to Eve.”

  Her voice shook. “I’m not going back with you, Martin. I’m never going to see you again. I meant that.”

  Martin made one last effort at nonchalance. “How’d you like your wife talking to you like that, friend? I’m telling you, it hurts. In front of a stranger. How would you like it?”

  “Maybe if I’d tried to kill her, I’d expect her to act just about like this.”

  Martin’s face sagged again. He stared at Ric, mouth slack.

  “Who are you?”

  “Nobody. I stood here and saw you turn off the gas out there this afternoon, killing the pilot light, and then turn it on again.”

  “You’re crazy.
You’re nuts.”

  “So far as I know, that has nothing to do with it. I’m not blind.”

  “I never heard such fool talk. No wonder Eve was upset when I got back from town. Did you go over there and tell her a crazy story like that?”

  Ric’s smile was cold. “After I dragged her out of that room and revived her, I told her.”

  Martin looked at Eve, back at Ric. “Sure. I left her in a drunken stupor. Why do you think we fought? She stays crocked all the time. I was sick and fed up. Maybe she tried to gas herself. I don’t know.”

  Ric just looked at him. “Why don’t you save that talk for the police? They might believe it.”

  “They will believe it. It’s the truth. Listen, pal, before you get mixed up in something you’ll wish to God you never heard of, you better hear this. I’ve got witnesses. Not one or two—twenty. They all say that Eve’s a lush and has been ever since I married her. She spreads all kinds of stories when she’s drinking. You better stay out of it. Anything she told you, you can chalk up to her drinking.”

  Ric said, chilled. “All she told me was that you were trying to kill her for her money.”

  Martin laughed. If Ric had not seen all he had, that laugh might have swayed him. He saw what Eve had meant. This man was clever; he had traded on his charm for so long that he relied on it to get him out of trouble.

  “For her money. That’s good. She begged me to marry her. She offered me a big cash settlement. Hell, ask her. She offered me plenty, and I wouldn’t take it. Ask her.”

  Ric didn’t have to ask her. She sagged against him slightly. It would be true anyway. Martin was after the big stakes, all of it. Why take peanuts, why be half secure?

  “Still you had her make a will leaving everything to you.”

  Martin laughed as though this were comic. “Sure. After she begged me. She told me something might happen to her and her old man would never let me have a cent. I told her I was a big boy, could take care of myself. But she carried on—she was bitter against her old man. Finally I told her to go ahead. But her own lawyer will tell you I was against it from the first.”