Part 3 (1/2)

”Well, I didn't.”

He glanced at her admiringly. ”Do you have to work at that hash-house?”

”It's a job.”

”You've got a better one if you want it.”

”With you? Do you mean it?”

”Yup.”

”Oh, I'd love it. I'd just love it.”

A conquest, thought Guinn.

She said, ”I could maybe see him every day.”

”See who?”

”Garry.”

Not my conquest, he thought, and allowed himself one of his rare grins. ”He's a good kid.”

”He's the bravest man I've ever known! Why, when that man came up out of the woods like that...”

”Tell me about it.”

”I was a little afraid of him at first, Garry I mean,” she said. ”The way he was looking at me. Then he started to talk. I never heard anybody talk the way he does. Not as if I was a girl. Just as if I was...well, people. About the car and you and jet aircraft and banana cream pie and the National League. It was...” She paused. ”Anyway, we heard the other car start. Garry put a hand on my arm and said not to worry. That was all, just 'Don't worry.' I wish I could tell you how-safe-it made me feel.

”The car came up, and sure enough it was him-Mordi, the man I'd been riding with before I met you. He looked out at us and then stopped his car. He leaned out for a long time and looked at me and at Garry and the station wagon, and then he got out and came up to us. I never saw such cold eyes on a human being in my life, and they shouldn't be, they're not the right color to be so cold.

”Garry got out and they stood looking at each other. Finally Mordi said, 'n.o.body cuts in on me, cottonhead.'

”Garry said, 'Beat it, cottonmouth. Nothing around here belongs to you.'

”So the man said to me, 'He's so wrong, ain't he, sugar?'

”And I said, 'He's so right.'

”He came up close, then, and told me I was going back with him. I just shook my head. Then Garry said, 'That'll do for now, tailor-dummy. Goodbye again.' And he reached inside his jacket. When he did that, Mordi pulled out a gun and shot him in the head.”

Guinn's eyes seemed to get smaller. ”Garry never carries a gun,” he said. ”I'll have to tell him some things about raising on a three-card straight.”

”He's too honest to get away with a bluff,” said Lynn.

”Oh,” said Guinn. The smile appeared again.

Lynn said, ”He reached in and got my wrist. I didn't know he was going to pull so hard, so suddenly. He hauled me out and I was flat on my face before I knew what was happening. Then he hit me.” She put her hand behind her neck, stroked. ”I guess I went out, and I didn't come to all at once, either. Everything was sort of dreamy for the longest time.”

”I know that punch,” said Guinn.

”I was in his car,” she continued. ”He wasn't. I heard another shot. I remember thinking he must have gone back to finish Garry. Or maybe you.”

”Shot a hole in my gas tank,” said Guinn.

”Oh. Well, before I was completely out of it, we were charging down the hill. He drove very fast. He laughed at me. He's crazy...what'd he want to kill a man over me for?”

”I don't want to take a compliment away from a lady,” said Guinn, ”but it wasn't over you. He killed somebody up there, and we were the only ones who'd seen him around. He knew what he was doing. That's why he came back just now to make sure you were out of the running. He seems to've missed me altogether. I guess while I was catfooting over toward the rocks on one side, he was sneaking back on the other.

She shuddered. ”He laughed at me,” she said. ”He-he touched me, too.”

”I'll speak to him about that sometime soon,” said Guinn.

The county hospital was just outside the city limits, across the highway from forest land. It was quite dark when they reached it. Guinn pulled up across the road from the big brick pylons which flanked the entrance to the hospital drive.

”Out,” he said.

She looked at him, wide-eyed. ”What?”

He chuckled. ”Cheer up. I'm not pulling a Mordi on you. Has it occurred to you that I've got to drive up to the emergency ward, floodlights and all, and that a couple of interns will be out to tote Garry in? Of course, I could explain that I'm helping you home from a floating c.r.a.p game where you lost your s.h.i.+rt...”

She opened the door. ”Hurry back,” she said.

He watched her cross the road shoulder and enter the woods. He shrugged into his damp jacket. It was clammy, but would cover his holster. Then he pulled into the drive. He turned at the parking court, wondering about the mental processes of landscapers who built graceful curves into a road which so often would have life or death at the end of it, and swung in under the brightly-lit port-cochere.

A grizzled guard hobbled over to him, peered. ”Had Guinn! Back again?”

”With a customer. Get a couple of butchers out here with a stretcher, will you, Jerry?”

He followed the old man in and went over to the registration window. ”h.e.l.lo, Cheryl.”

A blonde woman with a face like the most comfortable of sofa pillows looked up through the gla.s.s. When she saw him she smiled. It was like the kind of lamplight that goes with that kind of pillow. ”Hadley!”

”I brought Garry in,” he said bluntly. ”Someone creased his head.”

She rose. ”Is he-”

”Doesn't look too bad. But I'd like to know right away. I'm on a case. Will you take care of the gunshot report for me?”

”Oh, yes.” She got out the form, slid it through to him.