I had that same feeling you get in a hand of stud poker when you’ve hung in there with sevens back to back, seen the third one go elsewhere, debate hanging in there with those two kings staring at you across the table, then meet the raise and see the case seven hit you, and know then just how you are going to play it.
“Is this what you had in mind, miss?” the clerk asked. “What? No. No, thank you.” She moved away from the counter and, ten feet away, stopped and stared at me again. I could sense that she was beginning to suspect she had been tricked and had responded clumsily.
“I don’t think it would be smart for Terry to see us together.” I took out my wallet, felt in the compartment behind the cards, pulled out the folded clipping of the report of the fingerprint identification. “If you didn’t happen to know her by this name, Del, it won’t mean much.”
She unfolded it. Suddenly her hands began an uncontrollable trembling. The dressbox slipped from under her arm and fell to the carpeting. “Oh, God! Oh, dear Jesus God!” Her voice had a whistly sound.
I picked up her package. “Pull yourself together! You’ll bitch us both up. If you want to stay alive, settle down, damn it. Where’s Terry?”
“Wuh-wuh-waiting for me at that Blackbeard thing.”
“We better get you a drink.”
I took her to the Carlton. Her walk was strange, rigid, made stilt-like by shock. I took her to a dim back corner of the paneled bar lounge, empty at that hour. I got her a double Scotch over ice. She gulped it down and then began to cry, fumbling tissue out of her red purse. She cried almost silently, hunched, shuddering and miserable. At last she mopped her eyes, blew her nose, straightened with a slight shudder.
“I just don’t understand. Who are you? What’s happening?”
“They tried to kill her. They missed. She came to me. I’m just an old friend she could trust, that’s all. I live in Lauderdale. She couldn’t take the risk of trying to contact you and DeeDee, so she made me promise to try. DeeDee has disappeared. If you want a good guess, they’ve knocked her in the head and planted her out in the boondocks someplace.”
“My God! What are you trying to do to me!”
“Lower your voice! I’m trying to give you Tamie’s message. She was going to make a run for it. You can see she didn’t get into the clear. She tried to sneak back to pick up the money she had stashed away, and probably ran into Griff, whoever he is. She was afraid of running into him. She said to tell you to run. She said that all of a sudden they found out the law was getting too close, and they decided to close out the operation. And because you three hustlers are the way they’d tie the others into it, and because it is a murdering situation, they made a policy decision to kill the three of you. And it looks as if you’re the only one left, Del.”
“But they… wouldn’t!”
“Read the clipping. Kiddy, they hit her so hard with that murder car it splashed her up against the second story of a stone building.” When I saw the sickness, I followed it up by taking her wrist and saying, “It smashed one whole side of her head flat, all the way to her nose. And from the waist down she was just a sack of busted meat.”
She gagged, swallowed and said, “But I’d find out about it when.. “When you get back? Who’ll give you a chance to read last week’s newspapers? They’ll turn you off before you can unpack, lay low a few months, then recruit new girls.”
“I’ve got to tell Ans! We’ve got to get away from here!”
I bore down on her slender wrist until pain changed the shape of her mouth. “Smarten up fast, or I can’t help you, kiddy. That Monday night before you sailed, dear old Ans wired a cement block to Tami’s ankles and heaved her off a highway bridge below Marathon. It was after midnight. Mack drove the car. She was conscious. What they didn’t know, there were fishermen under the bridge. They got her up in time. She came to me in Lauderdale. Here I am taking this lousy risk of getting mixed up in this stinking thing, and you come on stupid. They thought she’d be dead. They talked in front of her. Griff and Ans made a sentimental deal. Ans was to drown Tami, and in return Ans turns you over to Griff. Tami said please warn you without Ans knowing. I owed her the favor. She was shook. She’d been sunk into twenty feet of black water with her ankles wired. So I flew over here and I’m booked back on the Monica D. I didn’t know I’d locate you ashore, from Tami’s description. Maybe even with a warning you don’t stand a chance. But I made the try. Stay stupid and you’re soon dead, because you’ve been in a business where that’s the only way they retire you, sweetie.”