Girl on a Slay Ride (5 page)

M
ALLORY
could feel the silence. He didn’t need to look at Graef to know that he was being watched. He didn’t need to look at the patrolman to know that he was expected to comment.

“Something, all right,” he said. His voice sounded thick to his ears. He glanced at the patrolman and shook his head.

The patrolman leaned farther over Mallory and stared down at the photograph. “Bastards,” he said. “Anybody’d who’d help a guy like that Blalock is a real bastard in my book.”

Mallory wished the patrolman would go away. He could feel himself sweating. He could smell the sour, fear odor of that sweat. He was afraid the patrolman would smell it too.

The waitress came up to the booth. “Coffee right away?”

“Fine,” Graef said.

The patrolman straightened up. Mallory let his breath run softly out of his chest. It had been tight, hurting. The waitress put down two glasses of water and laid typewritten menus in front of Mallory and Graef.

The patrolman said, “I didn’t get your name.”

“Graef. I’m a business acquaintance of Mallory’s. He’s been telling me about the fishing up here. It’s not my game, but he talked me into giving the country a try.” He spoke easily, naturally.

The patrolman said, “It’s a great place for a vacation. No excitement, maybe, but the best hunting and fishing in the country.”

Mallory gulped some water to ease the dryness in his mouth and throat. “The best,” he agreed.

The patrolman nodded and started out. “I’m late on the highway now,” he said. “See you around.”

“You bet,” Mallory said.

“Glad to have met you,” Graef called.

The patrolman’s boots made heavy sounds as he went toward the door. Mallory suddenly realized that he had one leg drawn up under the seat of the booth, in a position where he could swing it out at Graef. The muscles of the leg were knotted from strain. He let it relax, wondering what he actually thought he could do with a swing of his leg against a gun.

“That’s right, Mallory,” Graef said, “Relax easy.”

Mallory sat silently as the waitress set their coffee in front of them. He didn’t want anything to eat, not even coffee.

Graef sounded cheerful as he ordered toast and coffee for both of them, and ham-and-egg sandwiches and coffee to go.

The waitress left, and Graef said, “We can have a real meal after we set up camp.”

Mallory shrugged and began to read the newspaper story carefully. A subhead in the story caught his eye. The words were cold and brutal in their simplicity: “Deputy Sheriff Murdered.”

Mallory looked up to find Graef watching him. Graef’s eyes were cold and muddy. He said softly, “You see, another killing won’t make any difference now. Do you understand that, Mallory?”

Mallory said, “Yes.” He looked down at the paper again.

Mallory remembered the kidnaping of Mary Thompson, now. She was the daughter of a prominent Oregon lumber executive. Marvin Blalock’s plan to kidnap her and collect a hundred thousand dollars in ransom was so wild that few had ever doubted he would be ruled insane.

Blalock had kidnaped the girl from her college campus by simply driving up behind the library at night and waiting until she appeared. He forced her into his car. He then drove to a long, straight stretch of beach on a deserted section of the Oregon coast. He was a war pilot who had psychoed out but he was a superb flier. He had a stolen plane at the beach. The tracks he left in the sand puzzled the authorities. They indicated he had the plane equipped with skis.

The ransom note arrived in the next morning’s mail. It demanded a hundred thousand dollars in small, well used, and unmarked bills. The F.B.I. asked Thompson not to pay. But three days after the girl’s disappearance her parents received her dress in the mail. The next day her shoes and stockings arrived. The day after that her slip came. When her brassière reached Thompson, he ignored the authorities and went ahead on his own.

He was instructed to leave the “money” in a Portland bus-depot public locker and to let the F.B.I. know what he was doing. But this was to be a dummy package. The real package of money he was to put in a metal card-file box and mailed to General Delivery, also in Portland. He was warned that if he admitted this to the authorities for forty-eight hours, he would never see his daughter. He followed instructions and kept silent.

A later check by the F.B.I. showed that the money was left in the Post Office for a full day after it was received there. Then it was taken away by a man answering Blalock’s description. Two days later, the girl was returned. Blalock landed the plane on the same beach from which he had taken off. Only this time his undercarriage struck one of the numerous obstacles buried in the sand by the police. The plane nosed over.

The girl walked away from the wreck. She was found wandering up the beach, wearing only her torn panties. She had been sexually abused to the point of deep shock. She still remained in a private sanitarium.

Blalock was found unconscious in the plane. He cooperated with the police during his periods of sanity. He willingly detailed his entire scheme—except to tell them where he had hidden the money. The authorities searched every logical area. They found nothing. They were not even sure where he had landed the plane after he left Oregon.

Blalock’s trial dragged on through the summer, Finally, yesterday, he was judged insane and committed to the state asylum.

Mallory could feel Graef’s eyes on him. He glanced up. Graef said, “Read the entire story, Mallory. I don’t want you to think you’re dealing with amateurs.”

“It never occurred to me,” Mallory said dryly. He returned to the news story.

According to undersheriff Conners, Mallory read, he and undersheriff Smith were transporting Blalock through the coast mountains when they came on a gray sedan jacked up at the side of the road. It was getting dark and the driver signaled with a flashlight. Conners and Smith stopped to help. Before they could defend themselves, the driver of the sedan fired a gas bomb into their police car. When Conners came to, the police car was two hundred feet down a steep embankment, leaning against a fir tree. Blalock was gone and undersheriff Smith was dead.

Mallory looked up as the waitress brought their toast. She left, and Graef said, “Blalock did the whole job alone, Mallory. I’ve studied Blalock’s history carefully. He was a brilliant but unstable child. He had few friends—and none of them were girls—because of his repellent appearance. Consequently he came to hate people—especially attractive girls.”

“The poor devil,” Mallory said.

Graef smiled emptily. “You might say that the attitude of women toward Blalock made a potential human bomb of him. The Thompson girl was the one to be in the way when the bomb exploded.”

“Just as undersheriff Smith was in the way when you exploded,” Mallory said.

“Don’t be childish, Mallory. Words don’t anger me. And don’t try to compare me to Blalock. I told you I was no amateur. I decided months ago to get that hundred thousand dollars. I planned everything very carefully. I’m an exceptional planner. I studied all the great generals. I don’t make mistakes.”

“Are you trying to tell me that I was part of your plan from the beginning?” Mallory demanded.

“Certainly not. But a good general always leaves room for changes within his master plan,” Graef said. “When Nick and I saw you at the junction café, I felt there was something offbeat—the way you and the girl looked. Furtive is, I believe, the word I want. Naturally I had your car examined. The camping equipment gave me an idea. I acted on it.”

“So you trailed us to the motel?”

“Yes, but carefully. I didn’t want to alarm you.” Graef smiled. “But apparently my second examination of your car did just that. You almost escaped from me. And I do need you, as I explained.”

“You’ll never get away with it,” Mallory said. “The F.B.I. as well as the police are looking for you by now.”

“Not for me,” Graef corrected him. “For Blalock. Nick and I wore masks when we gassed those sheriffs. And the police know very little about me. When I decided to get the money, Nick and I took a trip. Not even our friends will wonder at our being gone, you see.”

“Where are you from?” Mallory asked.

“Kansas City,” Graef said promptly enough. “I was in racing—I laid off bets on the horses. And, as a gambler, I’d naturally heard of Rick Lawton, although I never met him.”

He rose abruptly. “Now let’s buy the extra camping equipment Nick and I will need.” He paused and stared from his cold, muddy eyes at Mallory.

“Don’t try anything, Mallory. Just remember that nothing you say or do is going to stop me from getting that hundred thousand dollars. We killed one man already. By accident, it’s true, but in the eyes of the law Nick and I are as guilty of murder as if I’d planned it that way.”

His voice became flat and dead. “So one or two or a dozen more killings mean nothing to us now.”

G
RAEF
questioned each piece of camping equipment Mallory bought. As if, Mallory thought, he suspected it might be used against him. In the end Graef agreed to purchase four sleeping bags with air mattresses, extra dishes and cutlery, and additional groceries.

Mallory carried the equipment to the wagon. His own helplessness filled him with a kind of impotent anger. He finished stowing the gear and got behind the wheel. He did not glance at Denise but started the motor as soon as Graef took his seat.

Mallory drove to the highway and turned north. He drove in silence. Graef said lightly, “Mallory’s sulking because he’s helpless.”

Mallory said flatly, “Where do we turn?”

“I’ll tell you when,” Graef said. He opened the sack of food he’d brought from the café. He gave Denise a sandwich and a carton of coffee. He passed the sack back to Thoms. He turned then and stared at the still empty road ahead.

They passed the forest road where Mallory had originally planned to turn into the mountains. He was reminded of the briefcase. He wondered what his boss was going to think when he didn’t appear with the forty thousand dollars. Call the police? Not at once, Mallory thought. But by nightfall he would. And Mallory knew that the first police reaction would be to tab him as a criminal.

He laughed in sudden, sour amusement. He felt Denise turn and stare in surprise at him. He glanced down and saw that she had not touched her food. The carton of coffee and the sandwich still rested in her lap. Her fingers squeezed nervously on the carton, denting its rounded cardboard sides.

Mallory thought about that coffee, and he felt the first stirrings of an idea.

But he would have to be careful, he knew. So far Graef had outmaneuvered him easily. Mallory took his hands from the wheel one at a time. He wiped nervous sweat from his palms. He caught Graefs smile at his telltale movements. It mocked Mallory.

A speed-zone sign showed ahead. Mallory kept the wagon at its same pace.

Graef said, “Don’t try to get arrested for speeding, Mallory. It won’t help anybody—especially Mrs. Lawton.”

Mallory felt Denise stiffen beside him. He dropped his speed to twenty-five.

He drove the wagon carefully through the small town of Forks. Its streets were filled with Saturday shoppers. Mallory saw a sheriff’s car parked at the curb. The uniformed man at the wheel paid no attention to them as Mallory went past. He realized he was holding his breath. He let it out gustily. Graef laughed at him.

Past the town, Mallory lifted his speed to fifty again. No one spoke. Denise continued to hold the carton of coffee tightly in her fingers. Graef sat looking straight ahead. Mallory glanced in the rear-view mirror. Thoms was lounging in a corner of his seat. Blalock seemed to be asleep, his head dropping toward his chest.

Graef said suddenly, “There’s a junction ahead. Keep straight on.”

Mallory saw the sign that indicated the federal highway was turning east. A blacktop road led north, into mountains that separated the valley which they were in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The straight itself separated the Olympic Peninsula of Washington from Canada. Mallory was not particularly surprised at Graef’s directions.

As soon as they had passed through Forks, he had been fairly sure of Graef’s probable destination.

What did surprise him was the apparent skill Blalock had shown in originally choosing this section of the Olympic Mountains in which to hide the money. Mallory remembered hunting in this spur range of the Olympics years ago. And, except for blacktop having replaced the miserable gravel path he had driven over then, nothing seemed to have changed. The mountains which rose on either side of them were still heavily timbered, the grand if not hospitable guardians of wild, uninhabited country.

Mallory tried to remember the exact shapes of the valleys which he knew lay cupped in the high jagged peaks. He made an effort to decide which one might have been large enough for Blalock to land a ski-plane. He decided his memory wasn’t that good. But he was sure that Graef would have him turn east up near the summit of the road. The mountains on the west sloped quickly to the ocean. That much he remembered.

Graef ordered the right turn just as Mallory had expected. The road they turned onto was graveled for the first mile. Then it began to rise sharply and grow narrower. The gravel disappeared, leaving a surface of rough dirt. Mallory shifted down as he felt the frame of the wagon shiver under the strain of its heavy load.

He said, “We can’t go too far on this road. I think it ends pretty soon.”

“I know what it does,” Graef said. “Do you think I came in here blind? Nick and I rented a jeep and explored it thoroughly less than a month ago.” His voice was heavy with satisfaction. “I told you, Mallory, that I leave nothing to chance.”

Mallory said, “This is no jeep. You can’t get this wagon much farther.”

“It’ll go where I want it to go!” Graef said.

Mallory did not reply. His eyes were exploring the road ahead. At the moment the wagon was climbing sluggishly through a thick stand of timber. He could see a logged-off area some distance ahead. The road was still ditched along here, maintained by the Forest Service. He glanced into the rear-view mirror. The road vanished into trees behind them. They had already come five miles since leaving the blacktop. The empty aloneness about them was broken only by the straining pound of the motor.

Mallory glanced briefly at Denise. She still held the sandwich and the carton of coffee in her lap. He said, “Drink your coffee, Denise, before it gets cold.”

“You see, my dear,” Graef murmured, “Mallory is really very solicitous of you. I don’t think you should be angry with him.”

“I’m not interested in what you think or don’t think,” Denise told him.

Graef kept his smile. “Then you might pass your food back to Nick or Blalock.”

“Give it to Blalock yourself,” she said. “Thoms told me all about him. I wouldn’t touch the ugly beast.”

Mallory could see Blalock in the rear-vision mirror. He was awake again. He sat lumpishly, his coat collar turned up, his fedora hat drawn down. As Denise spoke, he lifted his head. His eyes were no longer milky and empty. They were a bright intelligent blue. Mallory frowned as he saw them and the pain lying deep inside them. Then Blalock lowered his head again.

Graef said, “It’s unfortunate that Mrs. Lawton feels the same way about you that other women have, Blalock. She’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”

Graef’s cruelty made Mallory feel sick. He said, “Shut up. Leave the poor devil alone.”

“I wouldn’t feel sorry for him,” Graef said quietly. “Remember what he did to the Thompson girl. That was just a sample of what he’d like to do to all women, particularly lovely women. Think of how they must have made him feel all his life. Think of how Mrs. Lawton made him feel just now by her remark.”

Mallory felt Denise stiffen violently beside him. He said again, “Shut up, Graef.”

Graef said, “Blalock hid one hundred thousand dollars somewhere in these mountains. He was very clever when he picked them. They’re among the most inaccessible in the country. That much he told me so I’d continue to help him escape. Now he thinks he isn’t going to tell me any more. He thinks like you think, Mallory—that he’s going to get away from me somehow.”

He laughed softly. “You’re both wrong. Neither of you is clever enough. You’re going to help me find the money Blalock hid. You and Mrs. Lawton are both going to help.”

“You can go to hell,” Mallory said angrily.

Graef laughed again. “Blalock will tell me exactly where the money is. Then you’re going to guide me to it.”

Mallory thought he knew what was in Graef’s mind. He said desperately, “Let Mrs. Lawton go. She can’t hurt you without exposing herself. And she can’t help. She’s never been in these mountains before. She’ll just be in the way.”

It was a lie, but Mallory didn’t think Graef could know that. Denise had spent a number of summers fishing the Olympics with her father. She probably remembered parts of them as well as he himself did.

Denise said, “Don’t waste your breath, Cliff. Graef wouldn’t risk letting me loose. And I wouldn’t go if he did. I’m safer here than I would be where Rick’s men could find me.”

“She’s quite right,” Graef said equably to Mallory. “And in addition, I find Mrs. Lawton indispensable to my plans.” He glanced at her. “Now drink your coffee or give it to someone else. I dislike seeing anything wasted.”

“It’ll be cold,” she said.

“I can use it if you can’t,” Mallory said.

He kept his eyes straight ahead, not wanting Graef to glimpse his expression. He felt excitement turn to tension as Denise began to pry the cardboard lid from the carton.

They had left the heavy timber and were moving through a cut-over area. There was no sign of life and Mallory expected none. The loggers didn’t work on Saturdays. And the public had not yet discovered that the period between Labor Day and hunting season was the best for vacations in this area.

Denise handed Mallory the carton of coffee. He took a quick swallow. It was barely lukewarm. He had to force himself to take a second gulp.

The tension made his hand tremble. He realized that he was being overcautious. But at every point so far Graef had blocked his efforts with the ease of a chess champion blocking an amateur’s best moves. And he realized that he could not push Graef too far. The man had killed and, as he had said, he would kill again.

Mallory said carefully, “Graef, if you’re so damned clever, why weren’t you successful years ago?”

“Stow that kind of crap,” Thoms growled from the back seat.

Graef turned so that he faced Mallory. “Forget it, Nick. I didn’t know Mallory had so much spirit.”

Mallory said, “What’s more, I don’t think you’ll make it this time either. I think you’ll fail as you have all your life.”

“You’re being childish, Mallory. Words don’t make me angry.”

Mallory swallowed the quick dryness in his mouth. “If the F.B.I. couldn’t make Blalock talk, why should you be able to?” His voice was cutting.

“Because there are no restrictions on me,” Graef told him pleasantly. “I can use any method I choose in order to make Blalock tell me where the money is.”

Mallory could see Graef’s satisfied expression with a sideways glance. Graef was thinking of arguments to put forth to meet other objections Mallory might raise, but he was not thinking about what Mallory was doing right now.

Mallory’s mind shouted that this was the time.

He turned and threw the coffee past Denise, into Graef’s face. Then he dropped the carton and put both hands on the wheel. He twisted it savagely toward the ditch on the right side of the road and at the huge fir stumps beyond.

Graef’s voice rose in shrill, surprised curses. Thoms lifted himself from the rear seat with startling speed. He leaned forward. The right front wheel of the wagon struck the shallow ditch. Mallory tried to swing the steering wheel back, to make the wagon hang half in the ditch and half out.

Thoms was too quick. He put one big hand on the wheel and twisted it out of Mallory’s grasp. He forced the wagon to keep going to the right. The front wheel went down into the ditch and climbed out. The other wheels dropped in. The wagon bounced viciously across the ditch. Mallory’s foot instinctively hit the brake. The wagon stopped, its bumper jolting gently against a stump. Mallory realized dully that he had lost.