Fear is the Key

She broke step. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said “No”,’ Jablonsky murmured. ‘No phone, no police, I think we’ll leave the law out of it.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ Again I could see a couple of red spots burning high up in her cheeks. The last time I’d seen those it had been fear that had put them there, this time it looked like the first stirrings of anger. When your old man had lost count of the number of oil wells he owned, people didn’t cross your path very often. ‘We must have the police,’ she went on, speaking slowly and patiently like someone explaining something to a child. This man is a criminal. A wanted criminal. And a murderer. He killed a man in London.’

‘And in Marble Springs,’ Jablonsky said quietly. ‘Patrolman Donnelly died at five-forty this afternoon.’

‘Donnelly – died?’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Six o’clock news-cast. Got it just before I tailed you out of the parking-lot. Surgeons, transfusion, the lot. He died.’

‘How horrible!’ She looked at me, but it was no more than a flickering glance, she couldn’t bear the sight of me. ‘And – and you say, “Don’t bring the police.” What do you mean?’

‘What I say,’ the big man said equably. ‘No law.’

‘Mr Jablonsky has ideas of his own, Miss Ruthven,’ I said dryly.

‘The result of your trial is a foregone conclusion,’ Jablonsky said to me tonelessly. ‘For a man with three weeks to live, you take things pretty coolly. Don’t touch that phone, miss!’

‘You wouldn’t shoot me.’ She was already across the room. ‘You’re no murderer.’

‘I wouldn’t shoot you,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t have to.’ He reached her in three long strides – he could move as quickly and softly as a cat – took the phone from her, caught her arm and led her back to the chair beside me. She tried to struggle free but Jablonsky didn’t even notice it.

‘You don’t want law, eh?’ I asked thoughtfully. ‘Kind of cramps your style a little bit, friend.’

‘Meaning I don’t want company?’ he murmured. ‘Meaning maybe I would be awful reluctant to fire this gun?’

‘Meaning just that.’

‘I wouldn’t gamble on it,’ he smiled.

I gambled on it. I had my feet gathered under me and my hands on the arms of the chair. The back of my chair was solidly against the wall and I took off in a dive that was almost parallel to the floor, arrowing on for a spot about six inches below his breastbone.

I never got there. I’d wondered what he could do with his right hand and now I found out. With his right hand he could change his gun over to his left, whip a sap from his coat pocket and hit a diving man over the head faster than anyone I’d ever known. He’d been expecting something like that from me, sure: but it was still quite a performance.

By and by someone threw cold water over me and I sat up with a groan and tried to clutch the top of my head. With both hands tied behind your back it’s impossible to clutch the top of your head. So I let my head look after itself, climbed shakily to my feet by pressing my bound hands against the wall at my back and staggered over to the nearest chair. I looked at Jablonsky, and he was busy screwing a perforated black metal cylinder on to the barrel of the Mauser. He looked at me and smiled. He was always smiling.

‘I might not be so lucky a second time,’ he said diffidently.

I scowled.

‘Miss Ruthven,’ he went on. ‘I’m going to use the phone.’

‘Why tell me?’ She was picking up my manners and they didn’t suit her at all.

‘Because I’m going to phone your father. I want you to tell me his number. It won’t be listed.’

‘Why should you phone him?’

‘There’s a reward out for our friend here,’ Jablonsky replied obliquely. ‘It was announced right after the news-cast of Donnelly’s death. The state will pay five thousand dollars for any information leading to the arrest of John Montague Talbot.’ He smiled at me. ‘Montague, eh? Well, I believe I prefer it to Cecil.’

‘Get on with it,’ I said coldly.

‘They must have declared open season on Mr Talbot,’ Jablonsky said. ‘They want him dead or alive and don’t much care which … And General Ruthven has offered to double that reward.’

‘Ten thousand dollars?’ I asked.

‘Ten thousand.’

‘Piker,’ I growled.

‘At the last count old man Ruthven was worth 285 million dollars. He might,’ Jablonsky agreed judiciously, ‘have offered more. A total of fifteen thousand. What’s fifteen thousand?’

‘Go on,’ said the girl. There was a glint in those grey eyes now.

‘He can have his daughter back for fifty thousand bucks,’ Jablonsky said coolly.

‘Fifty thousand!’ Her voice was almost a gasp. If she’d been as poor as me she would have gasped.

Jablonsky nodded. ‘Plus, of course, the fifteen thousand I’ll collect for turning Talbot in as any good citizen should.’

‘Who are you?’ the girl demanded shakily. She didn’t look as if she could take much more of this. ‘What are you?’

‘I’m a guy that wants, let me see – yes, sixty-five thousand bucks.’

‘But this is blackmail!’

‘Blackmail?’ Jablonsky lifted an eyebrow. ‘You want to read up on some law, girlie. In its strict legal sense, blackmail is hush-money – a tribute paid to buy immunity, money extorted by the threat of telling everyone what a heel the blackmailee is. Had General Ruthven anything to hide? I doubt it. Or you might just say that blackmail is demanding money with menaces. Where’s the menace? I’m not menacing you. If your old man doesn’t pay up I’ll just walk away and leave you to Talbot here. Who can blame me? I’m scared of Talbot. He’s a dangerous man. He’s a killer.’

‘But – but then you would get nothing.’

‘I’d get it,’ Jablonsky said comfortably. I tried to imagine this character flustered or unsure of himself: it was impossible. ‘Only a threat. Your old man wouldn’t dare gamble I wouldn’t do it. He’ll pay, all right.’

‘Kidnapping is a federal offence––’ the girl began slowly.

‘So it is,’ Jablonsky agreed cheerfully. ‘The hot chair or the gas chamber. That’s for Talbot. He kidnapped you. All I’m doing is talking about leaving you. No kidnapping there.’ His voice hardened. ‘What hotel is your father staying at?’

‘He’snot at any hotel.’ Her voice was flat and toneless and she’d given up. ‘He’s out on the X 13.’

‘Talk sense,’ Jablonsky said curtly.

‘X 13 is one of his oil rigs. It’s out in the gulf, twelve, maybe fifteen miles from here. I don’t know.’

‘Out in the gulf. You mean one of those floating platforms for drilling for oil? I thought they were all up off the bayou country off Louisiana.’

‘They’re all round now – off Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Dad’s got one right down near Key West. And they don’t float, they – oh, what does it matter? He’s on X 13.’

‘No phone, huh?’