The Rip-Off (7 page)

The skeleton was between me and the house. Looming behind me, in the moonlit dimness, was the labyrinthine mass, the twisting hills and valleys, of the garbage dump.

I reached toward it, knowing that it was a bad move, that I was running away from possible help. But I continued to run. Running- fleeing-was a way of life with me. Buying temporary safety, regardless of its long-term cost.

Nearing the immediate environs of the garbage mounds, I began to trip and stumble over discarded bottles and cans and other refuse. Once my foot came down hard on a huge rat. And he leaped at me, screaming with pain and rage. Once, when I fell, a rat scampered inside of my coat, clawing and scratching as he raced over my chest and back. And I screamed and beat at myself, long after I was rid of him.

There was a deafening roar in my ears: the thunder of my over-exerted heart and lungs. I began to weep and sob wildly in fear-crazed hysteria, but the sound of it was lost to me.

I crawled-clawed-climbed up a small mountain of refuse, and fell tumbling and stumbling down the other side. Broken bottles and rotting newspapers and stinking blobs of food came down on top of me, along with the hideously bloated body of a dead rat. And I swarmed up out of the mess, and continued my staggering, wobble-legged run.

I ran down the littered lanes between the garbage hillocks. I ran back up the lanes. Up, down, down, up. Zigzagging, repeatedly falling and getting to my feet. And going on and on and on. Fleeing through this lonely stinking planet, this lost world of garbage.

I dared not stop. For I was pursued, and my pursuer was gaining on me. Getting closer and closer with every passing moment.

Thoroughly in the thrall of hysteria. I couldn't actually see or hear him. Not in the literal meaning of the words. It was more a matter of being made aware of certain things, of having them thrust upon my consciousness: a discarded bottle, rolling down a garbage heap. Or a heavy shadow falling over my own. Or hurrying footsteps splashing up a spray of filth.

At last, I tottered to the top of a long hummock, and down the other side.

And there. He-It-was. Grabbing me from behind. Wrapping strong arms around me, and holding me helpless.

I screamed, screams that I could not hear.

I struggled violently, fear giving me superhuman strength. And I managed to break free.

But for only a split second.

Then, an arm went around my head, holding it motionless-a target. And then a heavy fist came up, swung in a short, swift arc. And collided numbingly with my chin.

And I went down, down, down.

Into darkness.

She said she and her father had already eaten, and he'd gone back to his office. She said there were some people in this world who had to work for a living, even if I didn't know it.

"I've been working," I said. "I've almost finished my article."

"Never mind," she said. "Do you want some pancakes or something? There isn't any of the stew left."

"I'm sorry I didn't hear you call me for dinner. I would have been glad to join you."

"Will you kindly tell me whether you want something to eat?" she yelled. "I'm worn out, and I don't feel like arguing. It's just been work, work, work from the time I got up this morning. Cooking and sewing and cleaning, and-and I even washed the car on top of everything else!"

I said that she should never wash a car on top of anything, let alone everything. Then, I said, "Sorry, I would have washed the car. I told you I would."

She said, Oh, sure, a lot I would do. "Just look at you! You can't even shine your shoes. You don't see my daddy going around without his shoes shined, and he
works
."

I looked at her. The spitefully glaring eyes, the shrewish thrust of her chin. And I thought, What the hell gives here, anyway? She and her papa had been increasingly nasty to me almost from the day we were married. But tonight's performance beat anything I had previously been subjected to.

"You and your daddy," I said, "are very, very lovely people. Strange as it may seem, however, your unfailing courtesy and consideration have not made a diet of pancakes and table scraps palatable to me. So I'll go into town and get something to eat, and you and your daddy can go burp in your bibs!"

I was heading for the door as I spoke, for Connie had a vile temper and was not above throwing things at me or striking me with them.

I flung the door open, and-and there was a sickening
thud
and a pained scream from Connie, a scream that ended almost as soon as it began. I turned around, suddenly numb with fear.

Connie lay crumpled on the floor. A deep crease, oozing slow drops of blackish blood, stretched jaggedly across her forehead.

She had been hit by the sharp edge of the door when I threw it open. She was very still, as pale as death.

I grabbed her up and raced out to the car with her. I placed her on the back seat, and slid under the wheel. And I sent the car roaring down the lane from the house, and into the road that ran in front of it. Or, rather,
across
the road. For I was going too fast to make the turn.

The turn was sharp, one that was dangerous even at relatively low speeds. I knew it was, as did everyone else in the area. And I could never satisfactorily explain why I was traveling as fast as I was.

I was unnerved, of course. And, of course, I had lost my head, as I habitually did when confronted with an emergency. But, still…

Kind of strange for a man to do something when he damn well knew he shouldn't. Kind of suspicious.

The road skirted a steep cliff. It was almost three hundred feet from the top of the cliff to the bottom. The car went over it, and down it.

I don't know why I didn't go over with it… as Connie did.

I couldn't explain, no more than I could explain why I was speeding when I hit the turn. Nor could I prove that I had hit Connie with the door accidentally instead of deliberately.

I was an outsider in a clannish little community, and it was known that I constantly bickered with my wife. And I was the beneficiary of her $100,000 life insurance policy- $200,000 double indemnity.

If Connie's father hadn't stoutly proclaimed me innocent-Connie also defending me as soon as she was able- I suspect that I would have been convicted of attempted murder.

As I still might be… unless I myself was murdered.

I was kept under sedation for the rest of that night, and much of the next day and night. I had to be, so great was the damage to my nervous system. Early the following afternoon, after I had gotten some thirty-six hours of rest and treatment, Detective Sergeant Jeff Claggett was admitted to my hospital room.

It was Jeff who had followed me into the garbage dump, subsequently knocking me out when I could not be reasoned with. He had taken up the chase after hearing my yell, and seeing my flight away from the house. But he had seen no one pursuing me.

"I suppose no one was," I admitted, a little sheepishly. "I know he started around the fountain after me. But I was so damned sure that he was right on my tail that I didn't turn around to see if he was."

"Can't say that I blame you," Claggett nodded. "Must've given you a hell of a shock to come up against something like that pointing a gun at you. Any idea who it was?"

"No way of telling." I shook my head. "Just someone in a skeleton costume. You've probably seen them-a luminous skeleton painted on black cloth."

"Not much of a lead. Could've been picked up anywhere in the country," Claggett said. "Tell me, Britt. Do you walk around in your backyard as a regular thing? I mean, could the guy have known you'd be there at about such and such a time?"

"No way," I said. "I haven't been in the backyard in the last five years."

"Then he was just hiding there in the weeds, don't you suppose? Keeping out of sight, say, until he could safely come into the house."

"Come into the house?" I laughed shakily. "Why would he want to do that?"

"Well…" Jeff Claggett gave me a deadpan look. "Possibly he was after your money and valuables. After all, everyone knows you're a very wealthy man."

"You're kidding!" I said. "Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I don't have a pot to-"

"Right." He cut me off. "So what the guy was after was you. He'd have you pinned down in the house. You'd probably wake up-he'd wake you, of course-to find him bending over your bed. A skeleton grinning at you in the dark. You couldn't get away from him, and-yes? Something wrong, Britt?"

"Something
wrong!
" I shuddered. "What are you trying to do to me, Jeff?"

"Who hates you that much, Britt? And don't tell me you don't know!"

"But-but I don't," I stammered. "I've probably rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but…"

I broke off, for he was holding something in front of me, then dropping it on the bed with a grimace. A pamphlet bylined by me, with a line attributing sponsorship to PXA.

"That's why I came out to see you the other night, Britt. I ran across it in the library, and I was sure the use of your name was unauthorized. But I guess I was wrong, wasn't I?"

I hesitated, unable to meet his straightforward blue eyes, their uncompromising honesty. I took a sip of water through a glass straw, mumbled a kind of defiant apology for my employment with PXA.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Jeff. It was a public service thing. Nothing to do with the company's other activities."

"No?" Claggett said wryly. "Those activities paid for your work, didn't they? A lot more than it was worth, too, unless my information is all wrong. Three thousand dollars a month, plus bonuses, plus a car, plus an expense account, plus-Let's see. What else was included in the deal? A very juicy-and willing-young widow?"

"Look," I said, red-faced. "What's this got to do with what happened to me?"

"Don't kid me, Britt. I've talked to her-her and her uncle both. It's normal procedure to inform a man's employers when he's had a mishap. So I had a nice little chat with them, and you know what I think?"

"I think you're going to tell me what you think."

"I think that Patrick Xavier Aloe had been expecting Manuela to visit some unpleasantness upon you, and is now sure that she did. I think he gave her plenty of hell, as soon as I left the office."

I thought the same, although I didn't say so. Claggett went on to reveal that he had talked with Mrs. Olmstead. Learning, of course, that we were much more than employer and employee.

"She put out a lot of money for you, my friend. Or arranged to have it put out. She also put out something far more important to a girl like that. I imagine she only did it in the belief that you were going to marry her…"

He waited, studying me. I nodded reluctantly.

"I should have known what was expected of me," I said. "Hell, maybe I did know, but wouldn't admit it. At any rate, it was a lousy thing to do, and I probably deserve whatever she hands out."

"Oh, well," Claggett shrugged. "You weren't very nice to your wife either."

"Probably not, but she's an entirely different case. Manny was good to me. I never got anything from Connie and her old man but a hard time."

"You say so, and I believe you," said Claggett warmly. "Any damage you do, I imagine, is the result of not doing; just letting things slide. You don't have the initiative to deliberately hurt anyone."

"Thanks," I said. "I guess."

He chuckled good-naturedly. "Tell me about Connie and her father. Tell me how you happened to marry her, since it obviously wasn't exactly a love match."

I gave him a brief history of my meeting and association with the Bannermans. Then, since he seemed genuinely interested, I gave him a quick rundown on Britton Rainstar, after fortune had ceased to smile upon him and he had become Lo, the Poor Indian.

Jeff Claggett listened attentively. Laughing, frowning, exclaiming, wincing and shaking his head, by turns. When I had finished, he said that I was obviously much tougher than he had supposed. I must be to survive the many messes I had got myself into.

"Just one damned thing after another!" he swore. "I don't know how the hell you could do it!"

"Join the crowd," I said. "Nobody has ever known how I did it. Including me."

"Well, getting back to the present. Miss Aloe expected you to marry her. How did she take the news that you couldn't?"

"A lot better than I had any right to expect," I said. "She was just too good about it to be true, if you know what I mean. Everything was beautiful for around six weeks, just as nice as it had been from the beginning. Then a couple of days ago, the day of the evening I jumped this character in the skeleton suit-"

"Hold it a minute. I want to write this down."

He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket, then nodded for me to proceed. I did so, telling him of the dog and the mulatto woman, and the bartender who had thrown the drink in my face.

Jeff made a few notations to his notes when I had finished, then returned the book and pencil to his coat. Leaning back in his chair, he stared up at the ceiling meditatively, hands locked behind his head.

"Three separate acts," he said, musingly. "Four counting the skeleton routine. But there's a connection between them. The tie-in is in the result of those acts. To give you a hard jolt when you least expect it."

"Yes," I said uneasily. "They certainly did that all right."

"I wonder. I just wonder if that's how her husband died."

"You know about him?" An icy nil tingled down my spine. "She told me he died very suddenly, but I just assumed it was from a heart attack."

Claggett said that all deaths were ultimately attributable to heart failure, adding that he had no very sound grounds for regarding the death of Manny's husband as murder.

"They were at this little seacoast when it was hit by a hurricane. Wiped out almost half the town. Her husband was one of the dead. Wait, now"-he held up his hand, as I started to speak. "Naturally, she couldn't have arranged the hurricane, but she could have used it to cover his murder. I'd say she had plenty of reason to want him out of the way."

"I gather that he wasn't much good," I said. "But-"

"She dropped out of sight right after the funeral. Disappeared without a trace, and she didn't show up again for about a year."

"Well?" I said. "I still don't see…"

"Well, neither do I," Claggett said easily, his manner suddenly changing. "What are you going to do now, Britt, that you've quit the pamphlet writing?"

I said that I wished to God I knew. I wouldn't have any money to live on, and none to send Connie, which would surely cause all hell to pop. I was beginning to regret that I'd quit the job, even though I'd had no choice in the matter.

Claggett said I didn't have one now either. I had to go back on the job. "You'll be safer than if you didn't, Britt. So far Miss Aloe's only given you a bad shaking up. But she might try for a knockout if she thinks you're getting away from her."

"We don't actually
know
that she's done anything," I said. "We think she's responsible, but we're certainly not sure."

"Right. And we never will be if you break completely with her. Not until it's too late."

"But I've already quit! And I made it pretty damned clear that I meant it!"

"But she didn't tell her uncle apparently. Probably afraid of catching more hell than he's already given her." He stood up, dusting at his trousers. "I'll be having a little chat with both of them today, and I'll tip her off privately first- let her know that you're keeping the job. You can bet she'll be tickled pink to hear it."

The door opened and a bright-faced young nurse came in. She gave me a quick smile, then said something to Jeff that was too low for me to hear.

He nodded, dismissing her, and turned back to me. "Have to run, I guess," he said. "Okay? Everything all right?"

"Absolutely perfect," I said bitterly. "How else could it be for a guy with a schizoid wife, and a paranoid girlfriend? If one of them can't send me to prison or the electric chair, the other will put me in the nuthouse or the morgue! Well, screw it"-I plopped back on the pillows. "What are you chatting with the Aloes about?"

"Oh, this and that," he shrugged. "About you mainly, I suppose. They're very concerned about you and anxious to see you, of course…"

"Of course!"

"So, if it's all right with you, I'll have them drop in around five."