Chapter V: Part 5

It may have been the abrupt violence of his move that brought the reaction from the man who had so silently opened the door and stood upon the threshold. It may have been a simple act of self-defense that had been motivated by some new suspicion. Whatever the reason, the man’s hand had moved as Hayden completed his turn, and now he found himself staring into the muzzle of a revolver that looked very large and very threatening. Only when he could bring his eyes up to inspect the tanned, good-looking face did recognition come to him; only then did he understand that he had found Ted Corbin at last.

_14_

In those first silent seconds when no one moved and no one could find anything to say, Hayden offered silent thanks for the luck, coincidence, or good fortune that had finally paid off for his gamble and his persistence. He did not know what would happen now, but he felt a confidence that had not been there before, and he understood at once why Marion had been attracted to Corbin.

He seemed now to realize that Hayden presented no great threat and he let the gun swing down. He reached behind him to close the door, a big man, standing a good six feet two and weighing two-twenty or so, most of it bone and muscle. His blond hair was thick and worn fairly short, his mouth was wide, the jaw solidly shaped. His nose was a little off line, as though bent permanently in some football combat long ago, but the eyes were blue and well spaced and the tan gave him a look of strength and vitality. Waiting there in slacks, sport shirt, and flannel jacket, he had a puzzled look until Hayden spoke.

“Hello, Corbin.”

The big man did not do very well with the question. The eyes widened slowly and the mouth opened. For five seconds he simply stared and beneath the tan the muscles were suddenly slack. Then recovery came and he had himself in hand. The eyes wrinkled at the corners as a slow smile that had little warmth but was effective because of his white and even teeth took over.

“Corbin?” he said as though finding the word unfamiliar. “Un-unh. Cannon’s the name,” he added, a trace of southern accent coming through. “Ted Cannon.”

“Marion used to have a good picture of you,” Hayden said. “I saw it many times.”

“Marion?” The word was touched with wonderment. “Marion?” he said again, and then, as the message got through, acceptance came. “Oh, I see. And who the hell are you?”

“Her husband. I’m John Hayden.”

Corbin’s shoulders seemed to sag beneath the jacket as he took a labored breath. As though becoming aware of the gun in his hand, he tucked it somewhere inside his waistband. He seemed to be searching for words, but Flo, who had been taking all this with increasing annoyance, spoke first.

“What is this?” she demanded querulously. “If you’re going to have a conference take it outside, will you?”

Corbin looked at her curiously. He looked at Hayden.

“Who’s this?”

“I’ll tell you who I am,” Flo said and proceeded to do so.

Corbin’s smile came back, crooked now but tolerant. “So you’re picking up the pieces, hunh?”

“Who’s got a better right? Why don’t you two beat it and get off my back?”

“We will,” Hayden said, “if you’ll tell us about Adler.”

“Why should I?”

“I don’t know if the police know you’re cleaning out the place,” he added, “but we could ask them.”

She seemed about to argue but thought better of it. “All right.” She sat down, her tired face sullen. “What do you want to know?”

“You were Sam’s girl friend--”

“One of them.”

“So you must have some idea why he went North.”

“He said he had a deal on.”

“When did he first say so?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a month ago. I didn’t think much about it at first. He always had some kind of a deal cooking but nothing much ever happened.”

“When did he leave?”

“Saturday. He said he’d be back by the end of this week. He wouldn’t give any details. He said he was going to make a big score and when he collected we were going to Florida for a while.”

Hayden considered the statement and found it acceptable. It was the same line Adler had given to Doris Lamar, apparently with some success.

“He didn’t tell you how he was going to make that score?”

“No.”

He glanced at Corbin, who had been watching the woman, a sardonic expression working in his blue eyes.

“I guess you knew Adler.”

Corbin nodded. “I knew him.”

“And what happened to him?”

“There were a couple of paragraphs in the paper.”

“I think we have some talking to do.”

“About what?”

Hayden paused reflectively, his mind working smoothly. He was ready to accept Flo’s presence here for what it was, and he doubted if she could be of any help to him now. What happened here, or what she took from the apartment, was no concern of his.

“About why you’re here, what you expected to find. I have an idea about that and I can tell you about the deal Adler had in mind when he came to Connecticut.”

“What makes you think I’d be interested?”

“You’d better be.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“The police are looking for you and so are the insurance people; maybe even the FBI.” That the police were probably looking for him too was something that Corbin could not yet know, and Hayden continued with confidence: “All I have to do to prove it is pick up the telephone. I think my way is better. Is there a bar around where we can get a drink while I make a proposition?”

“I could use a drink, but we don’t have bars in this state,” Corbin said, “not the way you think of them. You can get a drink at most hotels and some restaurants. But you sit down, like in a cocktail lounge, and somebody mixes your drink, using a miniature bottle like you get in Pullman cars. Otherwise you get your own bottle at a State Store and drink it at home. Where are you staying?”

Hayden told him and Corbin said: “We’ve got to eat anyway and the food’s okay there. We’ll get our drink at the same place.... You through here?”

Hayden said that he was. He had come here like a man grabbing at straws in the hope of learning something that would help him. Now that he had found his man, he had no further interest in this apartment or the woman who called herself Flo. There was much he had to know about Corbin, but that, he felt, would come if he played his cards right.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve had enough of this.”

“Me too,” Corbin said and glanced at the woman. “Take it easy, doll.”

“Oh, sure.” The woman opened the suitcase and began to rearrange the things she had collected. “If it’s all right with you let’s forget we ever saw each other.” She turned her weary, disillusioned eyes to Hayden. “That goes for you too, Buster.”

* * * * *

When they had settled in a dimly lighted corner of the motel lounge with drinks before them, Corbin said: “How’s Marion? How long have you two been married?”

“Fourteen months,” Hayden said, “and right now she’s four months pregnant. That should give you some idea how she felt when we found out you were probably still alive.”

“Yeah.” Corbin lit a cigarette and frowned at it, his expression genuinely concerned. “I never thought it could happen. How did you find out? Adler?”

“You knew him. You had to know him, otherwise you wouldn’t have come to his place. What were you looking for?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’ve been away. I saw this piece in the paper. I thought I’d take a look at the apartment, just in case.”

“Maybe you were looking for these.”

Hayden took out the photographs he had originally taken from Adler’s wallet and spread them on the table. It seemed to him then that Corbin knew a lot about Adler, just as Adler must have known much about Corbin. How all this had come about was something he hoped to find out in time, but it could wait. He indicated the two pictures.

“He came to Marion with these. He asked for twenty thousand dollars.”

Corbin looked at the pictures, the frown still there, the concern still showing in the tanned face. “The miserable little bastard,” he said softly and then listened as Hayden explained why he had the enlargement made of the insignia on the coveralls, and how he had come finally to the filling station in Fairview.

“The fellow I talked with--”

“That was Joe Quinn.”

“--gave you a lot of protection. A real suspicious character.”

Corbin grunted softly. “The natives around here don’t always open up with Yankees, especially curious ones.... Who killed Adler?”

“Did you know he was coming to Connecticut to collect on what he knew?”

For the first time there was a moment of hesitancy in Corbin’s manner. His blue gaze, which until that instant had been direct, slid to the glass in his hand and he drained it before he replied.

“No.” He put the glass down. “The papers said he was stabbed.”

“In the back,” Hayden said, “with a kitchen knife.”

“The police haven’t made any arrests?”

“Not yet.”

“What do they think?”

“They think maybe I did it, maybe even Marion.”

“You mean they know about those pictures of me? How?”

“The Connecticut police found a Conti Street address for Adler. The Mobile people got right on it. They found the two prints and two negatives. They sent the snapshot of you up by plane and they were checking the fingerprints with Washington when I left.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I want you to come back.”

“With you?”

“Yes.”

Apparently the thought had not occurred to Corbin. He looked at Hayden with one eye, and then with both. The grin that came to warp his mouth was tight and twisted.

“Why?”

“Because it’s going to be a lot easier that way.”

“For whom?”

“For everybody.” Hayden put his elbows on the table and leaned on them. When he continued, his tone was direct and forceful. “The police are probably looking for me too,” he said. “If you go back with me I can justify this trip. What difference can it make to you? If I found you, so will the police. It’s just a question of time, and believe me they’re looking for you. Somebody’s got to get a divorce and in a hurry. Marion’s worried about the baby and so am I.”

“I could get a divorce in this state in no time,” Corbin said. “Or Marion could duck down here and get it.”

“But there’s also a little matter of seventy-five thousand dollars in insurance.”

“Yeah,” Corbin said and this time the grin, while reluctant, was genuine. “But I didn’t get it. I had amnesia. Marion collected in good faith--”

“It has to be paid back.”

“I can’t help you much there.... How about you?”

“I can’t make it all at once.” Hayden digressed to explain how the money had been used and the benefit he derived from it. “I’ll have to pay it back--most of it anyway--but I’m willing to work something out with the insurance company if I can clear up the rest of this.”

Corbin shrugged and pushed his chair back. “I guess maybe you’ve got a point,” he said slowly in that faint southern accent. “I don’t want to see Marion hurt. I thought I was doing her a favor in the first place two years ago. I thought I had it made.... Let’s eat,” he said abruptly. “We’ll work something out.”

_15_

The interior of Ted Corbin’s cottage was an improvement over the jerry-built look of the exterior. The front room bore no sign of a woman’s touch and the furniture had been selected with an eye to comfort rather than style. Photographs on the walls testified to the owner’s interest in the outdoor life--Corbin with a dead deer, Corbin and friends with a day’s bag of quail, Corbin posing proudly with a sizable tarpon--but the chairs, the couch, the television set were in good condition and the room had an over-all look of bachelor neatness.

Hayden had followed Corbin across the causeway in his rented car because, while Corbin had given the impression that he was ready to fly back and straighten out the situation he had created, Hayden wanted to stay with the big man until they were actually on the plane. Now, coming in from the kitchen with a bottle of bourbon and glasses and a pitcher of water, he sat down opposite Hayden and stretched his legs out, the ankles crossed.

“I told you I’d tell you what happened two years ago,” he said, “and try to explain the series of stupid incidents that kept me from getting on the plane that night in Capitol City. It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time,” Hayden said.

“And it’s in two parts. The first concerns me. The second has to do with Adler. It’ll show you what a conniving little bastard he was and how he got things ready to collect on what he knew.”

He waved a hand as an invitation to pour a drink but Hayden said he’d wait. Corbin nodded and took time to light a cigarette. When he had inhaled, his gaze moved to the opposite wall and a small frown began to work on the tanned, handsome face.

“I guess it starts with Marion and me,” he said. “I mean the fact that our marriage hadn’t worked out and was about to bust up. I don’t know how much she told you about me--where I was brought up and where I went to school and what I was doing when she met me.”

He paused while Hayden related the few things Marion had told him. He nodded absently.

“That’s about right,” he said. “I liked football and I played a couple of years of the pro game but I couldn’t quite cut it. I mean, I could see I’d never be a first-string regular, but I always liked to hunt and fish, and those were things Marion had no interest in whatsoever. Oh, I guess we were in love all right when we were married, but, after six months or so, everything seemed to start going downhill and it was probably a lot more my fault than it was hers.

“I mean, we just weren’t interested in the same things. It was hard to talk to each other. She liked to read; I didn’t. She liked to go to the theater, sometimes to a concert. She liked music--Dixie, the classics, anything that was good. I just couldn’t seem to get with that sort of stuff, but I think it was the friends we had that made things worse. A man and woman just can’t get along by themselves. They have to have friends and outside contacts and mutual interests, don’t they?

“My friends,” he added, expecting no answer, “were basically guys like me. I knew some guys on the Giants and the Eagles, a couple in baseball. In football season I’d look them up or they’d look me up. They’d come to the apartment or maybe we’d go out somewhere for dinner. Real good guys, some of them with nice wives, but Marion simply couldn’t tune in on that kind of talk. It was even worse for me. She had her friends and we’d be out with them at parties and I had a hard time finding anything to say that anybody would listen to.

“I don’t mean they were snooty. They liked Marion and they wanted to like me, but about half the conversation was chitchat that didn’t mean anything and was about people I didn’t even know. The rest of it, the men I mean, was talk about stocks and investments and taxes and politics and golf handicaps and trips they had made.” He stopped and looked at Hayden. “Does any of this make any sense?”

“It makes a lot of sense,” Hayden said.

“So the marriage wasn’t working out and we both knew it. We both tried too, I think. But somehow I started to drink a little more than I should and I’d get to brooding and wondering what I could do to fix things up. Instead of getting out and trying to sell, I’d duck into an afternoon movie and brood some more. So I lost a job and then another and another. I was about to lose again when I went out to Kansas City to see if I could swing one more deal.

“I was working for a paper box company at the time, and I thought maybe if I could get a big order I could hang on a while longer, not that it probably would have done any good because we were already talking about separation and divorce. Marion had started to look for a job and I guess we both understood there wasn’t any future in it for us the way things were.”

He stopped again and, as though just becoming aware of the bottle of whisky, reached for it. He pulled his legs in and sat up; he made two drinks, not asking Hayden if he wanted one. He passed it over silently and Hayden accepted. Corbin took a big swallow, put the glass down, and again his gaze moved away and distance grew in it.

“This was right after New Year’s,” he said, “and on New Year’s they have all those college bowl games and I hit three out of four. I had six hundred dollars in my kick when I got the plane that day. I went out to Kansas City. I made my pitch. No dice. So I had one more chance, a job I’d heard about that was opening up for an outfit in Capitol City. So I went there. Same thing. I said what I had to say and they listened. They didn’t say no but I didn’t think I was going to get the job either.

“Well, this is late Friday afternoon and I’m feeling too sorry for myself to go home yet. But the next day, Saturday, they’re having the play-off of the two runner-up teams in the National Football League. The Bisons are five-to-nine underdogs but I like ’em. I have this six hundred bucks, so I lay five of it on the Bisons and they win by one point in the last forty seconds. So now I’ve got around fifteen hundred bucks--more than I’ve had since I can remember--and it’s late Saturday afternoon, so now we come to the trench coat.”

Hayden remembered the trench coat. That coat, and what had been in its pockets, had been all-important in establishing Corbin’s death, and now he put his glass aside and waited, his dark eyes somber and intent.

“I’d had that trench coat since before I married,” Corbin said, “and Marion hated it. Maybe not at first, but I always wore it when I could, and I guess it got to be looking pretty disreputable. Anyway she said it was. About once a week she’d make some crack about it. Why couldn’t I get a neat cloth coat like other men? She didn’t say I looked like a bum but that’s what she thought.”

He grunted softly and an absent smile was reflected in his eyes. “I guess it did get to be pretty crummy-looking, and for some reason I remembered how she felt about it that Saturday afternoon. So I walked into this store with all that fresh money in my pocket and bought a new one.

“I didn’t have too much time and the sleeves had to be lengthened about an inch but that salesman wanted the sale. I told him I couldn’t wait, that I had things to do. He said he could send it to the airport but I thought of something else. I said if he’d have it wrapped up and ready, I’d have my taxi come by that way and pick it up. I told him if it wasn’t ready for me by the front door there’d be no sale and he promised it would be there.... It was,” he said, and took another swallow of his drink.

“So I rode out to the airport and got a quick double bourbon and water. I was feeling pretty good then and I’d never taken any flight insurance before, but I got to thinking that now that I had some real money this would be the time the damn plane would crash, so I stopped and got this policy for Marion. I’d already wired her I’d be on that flight, so I went over to the counter, handed over my suitcase and ticket.”

He grunted softly again, an introspective sound. “The fellow stapled the baggage check to that part of the ticket they give you back--you know, the carbon part. The clerk handed me a landing pass and then I took off for the men’s room to try on my new coat. The room was empty except for two guys who were sitting on a bench and two sadder-looking characters you never saw. One was on the small side, with an old felt hat and a topcoat on. The other fellow was nearly as tall as I am but not as big around. He wore a wrinkled suit with a sweater on underneath it but no coat.

“What I didn’t know was that they were pals and were actually together. Because they weren’t sitting that way. I mean, the tall guy was hunched over reading a newspaper; the little guy was sitting by himself at the other side of the room, slumped back, his hat over his eyes like he was half asleep. I probably gave him a quick look when I walked in but I never really saw his face.

“I undid the package and chucked the paper into a trash can. I tried the coat on and liked it and was about to throw the old coat on top of the wrapping paper too when I thought about this guy who didn’t have a coat. I turned around and asked him if he could use it. I said it was pretty dirty but it might not be too bad once he got it cleaned and he was welcome to it if he wanted it. He did. He thanked me, and as I started out I could hear the flight being called over the loud-speaker.”

He paused again, the blue eyes full of thought as his mind went back.

“But I was a little juiced by that time and feeling pretty good. I knew that the first call for a flight--and lots of times the second call--didn’t mean a thing, and since I was all cleared away I decided I had time for another drink. I heard the second call but I was just mulled enough to think I had plenty of time. Anyway I finished my drink, paid the check, and started for the gate.”

He took a breath and let it out slowly. He looked again at Hayden and that small smile was still there.

“I guess you know how it must have been and what happened after that.”

“I guess so,” Hayden said.

“It was a lot longer walk than I thought. This particular gate was way-the-hell-and-gone at the end of the corridor, and when I got there the attendant who had been checking off the passengers was just turning away. The gate was closed. I could see the passenger ramp being wheeled away from the plane and the door was shut. Two of the motors had already started. I knew I didn’t have a chance but I thought I’d try. I stuck my hand into my new coat pocket to get my boarding pass and the carbon to my ticket and my baggage check and--you guessed it--I’d forgotten to take them out of the old coat.”

“Ahh--” said Hayden as he visualized the picture. “By then it was too late--”

“Hell yes. I asked the attendant if everybody was checked aboard. He said yes, and by that time I was too disgusted with myself to put up a beef. I knew it wouldn’t do any good. It was my own damn fault, and I knew that skinny guy was sitting there in my seat, that he not only would get a free ride to New York but probably claim my suitcase.

“I was so damn mad I didn’t even go back to the counter and tell them what had happened. I wasn’t even sure I could make them believe it or prove what I said. I just stood there and watched the plane take off and then I went back to the bar, not thinking that I ought to call Marion and tell her I missed the flight. I tied on a pretty good one for the next hour or so and then I walked out of the terminal and across the road to this motel, paid for a room, and went to bed to sleep it off.”

He stood up, the tanned face grave as remembered thoughts came back to haunt him.

“If I’d hung around the airport a few more minutes I’d have known about the crash. But I didn’t. I got the word from a newspaper I bought when I went into the motel restaurant for breakfast the next morning, and I guess for a while after that I was in a state of shock. I still wake up scared some nights when I think of it. You can’t believe what a thing like that can do to you.”

He walked the length of the room and came back. “I should have been dead but I wasn’t. I kept thinking of that plane and how I’d seen it take off and the crazy twist of luck that kept me off it. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I read my name on the list of victims. I knew that Marion already had the word that she was a widow.”

He stopped pacing to look at Hayden. “The idea that there was my chance to make the break that was long overdue didn’t come all at once. It grew a thought at a time as that feeling of shock and unreality began to wear off. I didn’t have any plan then. I only knew that here was a chance I’d never get again to start a new life not only for myself but for Marion. There was no love for us any more, no future together. She wouldn’t grieve much. She’d already had the shock of knowing I was gone for good, and now she’d have seventy-five thousand bucks, more than I could ever have left her any other way.”

He paused again and said in slow accents: “Only one guy on earth besides myself knew that I hadn’t gone down with that plane. The little guy in the men’s room.”

“Adler.”

“Right. I thought about him before the day was out, but in my mind he was only some itinerant bum, and the odds that he could foul up my scheme were a million to one.” He stepped to an open doorway, reached in, and snapped on a light. “But that’s the second part of my story and it can wait.”

He disappeared inside the room and Hayden could see enough of the interior to know that this was a bedroom. Presently he heard a telephone being dialed and then Corbin’s voice.

“Connie? I’m coming over for a few minutes.... Yeah.... No, I can’t tonight but I have to see you. Yeah, right away.”

He came back to the living room and headed for the outside door.

“I told you I’d probably go back with you,” he said. “You can count on it. Not just for you and Marion either.”

“For Connie?” Hayden said, hazarding a guess.

“Yeah.” The grin came slowly, the teeth white against the tanned muscular face. “I guess I’ve been kidding myself too long.... I’ll be back in a half hour,” he added. “Stick around.”

_16_

John Hayden remained in his chair for several minutes after the door closed, his drink forgotten and his mind evaluating the story he had heard. Even in retrospect he could not quarrel with it. It held, somehow, a ring of truth, and he found he could accept the incredible twist of fate that had saved Corbin’s life on that January night more than two years ago. There was much he did not understand about what had happened since that time, but even now he found it difficult to blame Corbin for what he had done.

He had thought earlier that he understood Marion’s original attraction to the man. He was of the same opinion now. For while Corbin was obviously no mental giant, he had, in addition to his good looks, a charm that was forthright and basically friendly. The motives which influenced his disappearance were simple and uncomplicated. He was willing now to face the music without fuss and, on balance, Hayden could not help but like him. This thought helped to bolster his own confidence, and as his mind went on, he rose and started aimlessly about the room.

The light was still on in the adjoining bedroom and he stopped in the doorway to glance inside. That was how he happened to see the suitcase which stood at the foot of the double bed. There was nothing unusual about the case. It was a brown canvas-covered bag, man-sized, lightweight, and medium-priced by the look of it. If he had not so recently made a flight from New York he might not have wondered about the baggage tag which still hung from the handle.

He knew it was the passenger’s half of the baggage check that the attendant had not bothered to remove when the suitcase was reclaimed. He also recalled that Corbin had been away. The suspicious character in the filling station had said something about Corbin and a trip North. This knowledge prompted Hayden to move inside and step closer to the suitcase, but it was simple curiosity rather than suspicion that made him examine the tag.

Not understanding yet the implications of his discovery, he simply read the large block letters imprinted on the thin white cardboard. The abbreviations told him at once that this suitcase had been checked from New York to Mobile. The top numbers meant nothing but there was a flight number that did. This had been written in with a blue crayon, and as he repeated the number aloud he knew that this was the same flight he had taken that morning.

He straightened slowly, his angular face twisting absently and his dark gaze puzzled. He stood that way for long seconds, knowing that Corbin must have been in New York recently. Then, stooping again, he flipped the tag over and saw the date that had been stamped there. Only then did he realize that Corbin had taken the same flight South that he had, but exactly twenty-four hours earlier.

Why?

That is what he asked himself as he grappled with his new-found information. He let his breath out slowly, not knowing that he had been holding it. He considered the days of the week and a curious feeling of tension began to work on him as he realized that Corbin had probably been in New York the night Sam Adler was killed. The assumption was sound but it was still only an assumption. Corbin could have been in New York for any number of reasons. But when had he arrived? How long had he stayed and what--?

The sound of the car moving in from the street to park alongside the porch jerked his thoughts back to the moment, and his immediate reaction was swift and impulsive. Not really thinking, not even sure what prompted the move, he quickly loosened the cord that held the tag. When he had a loop he slipped the piece of cardboard through the opening and it came free in his hand. Even as he straightened again a new thought came to disturb him but he dismissed it arbitrarily. Maybe Corbin would miss that tag and maybe not, but it was too late now for doubts, and he was back in the living room, the tag safely in his pocket, when the door opened.

The big man’s grin seemed genuine as he entered the room, and there was no indecision in his manner as he started for the bedroom, stopping only long enough to pick up his glass and the whisky bottle.

“Bring your glass,” he said. “Water if you want it. I’d better start packing.”

Hayden followed him to the door, a nervousness assailing him as Corbin picked up the suitcase and tossed it on the bed. He watched the big man pour a small drink and toss it off, saw him put the glass aside and open the suitcase. When he turned to pull out a drawer in the chest, Hayden gave a small and silent sigh of relief, emptied his own glass, and started to relax.

“You were going to tell me about Adler,” he said. “And why you came to Mobile.”

“Yeah,” Corbin said, “and the last part is easy. Once I finally decided to make the break I thought of it right off and for three reasons: I didn’t know anybody here and that meant nobody would know me, I liked the country, and it was far, far away from New York.”

“You’d been here before?”

“One summer while I was in college I worked for a while on the docks. I liked to hunt and fish even then, and this country gives you both. Deer, quail, dove, turkey; even ducks if you want to go west a hundred miles.”

He stopped to consider the things he had already packed and when he continued there was a noticeable enthusiasm in his voice.

“As for fish, you name it, we’ve got it. I don’t mean you can just toss out a line and get the limit any time you want to, but if you like to fish this is the place. Fresh water, salt water. Lakes and rivers, the Bay, Mississippi Sound, the Gulf. I’ll never forget a trip I took that summer with four guys from the docks. We chartered a boat at Bayou La Batre. We were out three days and we had fishing that was fishing.

“Anyway,” he added, as though aware that he was digressing, “I decided this was the place for me. I mean, after I finally decided to run and that took a while. I remember I went from the motel over to the air terminal and found out what I could about the crash. I was still sort of in shock and I bought myself a bottle in a liquor store there and I sucked on it from time to time. Maybe what I got out of that bottle gave me the courage I needed. I got a bus into town and I had this fifteen hundred bucks in my pocket and I knew that was all I was going to have until I got down here and got a job. I found out I could get a bus that afternoon that would take me here by way of New Orleans, so I got myself a seat. But, what the hell, you don’t want details.”

He again glanced about the room to see if he had forgotten anything.

“I picked the name Cannon--don’t ask me why--and I used it that afternoon. I’ve been using it ever since. I got a room in a small hotel and started looking for work. I couldn’t use my Social Security card or driver’s license or anything like that, so when I got a chance to go to work for this filling station at sixty bucks a week I told the guy I never had had a Social Security card. I told him I’d always worked on a farm, but he needed help and he wasn’t too fussy. I got a new card and eventually a new driver’s license.

“After I’d been around awhile,” he said, “I got to like Fairview and I finally got the job with Quinn. I hung onto my dough, and when the next fall came around I did pretty good betting on the football games again. I rented this place and got me a small boat, and before long I found out that Quinn had a very attractive kid sister.”

“Connie?” Hayden asked.

“Connie,” Corbin said, and the smile in his eyes told Hayden how the big man felt about the girl. “Quinn and I got along and I saved my dough and now I’ve got a third interest in that filling station. I thought I was all set. I had it made. The past was kicked and then that son-of-a-bitch Adler turned up.”

“He must have known all the time,” Hayden said, having only a vague idea of how such a thing could happen but understanding that this was so.

“Hell yes, he knew.” Corbin stopped his packing and the blue eyes were suddenly cold and resentful. “He started snooping and figuring that first day. He didn’t have any angle then, but he could tell from what I did that I had one. He wouldn’t let it go. He couldn’t figure out why I acted the way I did and it bothered him. He had to find out what I was after and if there was anything in it for him. He said it was curiosity at first.”

“You got the story out of him?”

“I got it. He’d have made a damn good detective,” he added bitterly, “especially a dishonest one.”

“He saw his pal get on the plane,” Hayden said.

“Sure. But what you have to understand, the thing that gave Adler a chance to follow up was that I didn’t know these two were together. How could I? I told you I was a little juiced when I walked into that men’s room. I’m interested in trying on a new coat and getting out of there. I notice a little guy slumped in the corner, his hat half over his eyes like he’s trying to sleep. I see this other guy at the opposite end of the room, reading a newspaper that looked like it had been picked out of a trash can. This is the guy I see. This is the fellow I gave the trench coat to.”

“When he found the ticket and your boarding pass in the pocket,” Hayden said, “he decided to take a chance on using them and see if he could get away with it.”

“Right.... They were horse players,” Corbin said, “and they were trying to get to Florida or New Orleans, but they had only enough dough between them to get one of them down there. They were hanging around trying to keep warm and waiting for something to happen. The minute they realized they had a chance to get my seat they pooled their cash and Adler took it, the other guy figuring if he can make New York he’s got friends who can give him a hand.

“And because I have to have a couple more drinks,” he added savagely, “and I’m stupid enough to think maybe the plane will wait for me, they pulled it off. Adler keeps an eye on me, at first to see if I’m going back to the airline counter to make a beef and after that just because he’s got that kind of curious, conniving mind. He follows me over to the motel and knows that I register and go to my room. He comes back to the terminal building and a few minutes later he gets word of the crash. He’s got nowhere to go and nothing to do so he hangs around. All he knows then is that his pal got a bad break and that I’m a very lucky guy.”

He took a breath and said: “He’s still there the next morning when I come in. He knows the score. He wonders what I’m going to do. He sees me get the pint from the liquor store, and he can’t figure out why I should be acting like that, so when I get a bus back to town, he’s on it. By the time I get to the bus terminal in town I know what I’m going to do. I buy a ticket to Mobile in the name of Ted Cannon, and since he’s going South anyway he decides to come along.”

“You didn’t recognize him?” Hayden asked.

“I didn’t know he was alive,” Corbin said. “To me he’s a little guy--he’s got dark glasses on now--I’ve never seen before. We even have a little conversation on that trip because by now he knows I’m doing a run-out and he’s beginning to smell a payoff somewhere. He goes to the same cheap hotel I do, and a couple days later when I get a job he finds out where I got it. After that I don’t see him again until a couple of months ago when he turns up at the filling station.”

Hayden was ready to accept this much. He also knew that Corbin knew a great deal about Sam Adler and somewhere in his mind a small seed of suspicion began to put out shoots.

“But how could he know about Marion?” he asked.

“How could he miss with a mind like his? He read the papers, just like I did. It was all there if you wanted it--names and addresses of victims, those that had been identified, those that weren’t. Because they didn’t know what caused the crash for a while, the insurance angle came out too. Adler not only knew my New York City address but he knew that Marion was going to collect seventy-five thousand dollars. That was all he needed to get the idea that maybe someday there’d be some dough in it for him.”

He closed the top of the suitcase and said: “I don’t mean he made a career out of this during the next two years, but he always had it in the back of his mind. And remember he was a horse player. New Orleans, Hollywood, Miami in the winter; Aqueduct, Belmont, Narragansett, Suffolk Downs in the summer. He may have had a little help in New York--he didn’t say--to keep a check on what Marion did. On one trip he found out she got married. He found out where you lived. He never forgot that she had collected seventy-five thousand dollars and he eventually found out that you had your own business and were doing pretty well in it. When he got ready he made his first move.”

“How?”

“He drove into the filling station one day,” Corbin said. “I knew I’d seen him somewhere but I didn’t remember him. I thought he was just another customer I’d seen before. He took that snapshot of me without me knowing it. While I was working on the car I must have put my hand on the hood because later he got somebody to lift those fingerprints and photograph them. I didn’t know anything about it until he showed up one evening and made his pitch.”

“Here?”

“Right in that other room. He showed me the two snapshots. He told me when he’d taken them and why. He told me the story and it didn’t make any difference whether I believed him or not; the point was he knew what had happened. He knew I was Ted Corbin. He knew about the insurance and he knew about Marion.”

He yanked the suitcase from the bed with a quick and angry movement. He set it on the floor and when he turned there were hard bright glints in the narrowed blue eyes.

“I told you he’d been snooping,” he said, “and not just about Marion and you. Somehow he knew I had an interest in the gas station. He knew about my car and my boat and Connie. He had to guess about one thing--that we planned to get married--but he was right.”

“How much did he want?”

“Five thousand. He said he’d take twenty-five hundred now and I could get the other twenty-five hundred up in six months or whenever I could.... I should have killed him then,” he said savagely. “I’d have been acquitted in this county. He was carrying a gun and I could have sworn that he threatened me.”

Hayden considered the statement in the brief silence that followed. He wondered about the phrasing of certain words but he did not dwell on them because he had to know the rest of it.

“What _did_ you do?”

Corbin shrugged. He gestured emptily with one brown hand. His gaze seemed distant and withdrawn and when he spoke the savagery had gone from his tone.

“I guess I didn’t play it very smart,” he said. “I was too burned right then to realize that he could hit you and Marion without ever coming directly to me again. I started for him and knocked him down and threw him out. I threw the gun out after him. I told him if I ever saw him again or even heard from him he’d wind up in the Bay with an anchor around his neck.”

He took a slow breath and the look in his eyes suggested that he was seeing again the scene he had described. “I meant it,” he added with quiet emphasis, “and Adler knew I meant it--”

His head jerked around as the sound of the telephone punctuated his sentence. It was loud and startling, that sound, its unexpectedness holding both men immobile until it rang again. This time Corbin strode over and swept the instrument off its rack.

“Yeah?” He listened then and Hayden could see the quick frown and the growing uncertainty in the blue eyes. “You sure?... Yeah.... Right.... Thanks, pal, I’ll be in touch when I can.”

He hung up and reached for the suitcase in the same continuous movement. The frown was still there on the tanned good-looking face but the eyes were thoughtful now and there was a thin, mirthless smile on the mouth.

“My partner,” he said. “A Mobile cop, a sheriff’s deputy, and an insurance man are looking for me. Let’s go.”

Hayden had to move fast to get out of Corbin’s way and then they were crossing the living room and turning out lights and coming finally to the screened porch. As they went down the steps Hayden said:

“How much time have we got?”

“Enough. Quinn had to give them an address, so he told them I lived on North Oak Street. This is South. Follow me in your car,” he said.

Hayden did not argue. He tailed Corbin’s sedan until Corbin parked it out behind the filling station, approaching from the side street. Corbin transferred his suitcase to the back seat of Hayden’s rented car and climbed in beside him. He said if the word was out he might be picked up in his own car, but with a rented car there should be no trouble.

_17_

Ted Corbin made a good suggestion as they came out of the tunnel into downtown Mobile. The half-hour drive from Fairview had been uneventful and silent, but now Corbin stirred in his corner of the seat and Hayden could feel the shadowed gaze inspecting him.

“Did you rent this car in your own name?”

“I had to,” Hayden said. “Had to use my credit card.”

“Well, we know they’re looking for me. From what you say there could be a fugitive warrant out for you.”

“There probably is.”

“I don’t know about flights out of here at this time of night. I do know that an airport is one of the first places a cop would check, and now that I’ve decided to go back I’d rather make the trip with you than with the law.”

“What have you got in mind?”

“New Orleans. They’ve probably got twenty times as many flights a day out of there as they have out of here and it’s a hell of a lot bigger terminal. We can stop and pick up your bag at the motel and keep moving.”

“How far?”

“Maybe three hours.”

“Okay,” Hayden said, “just keep me on the right road.”

“Stay on 90--all the way.”

At the motel Hayden did not bother to turn off the motor while he went to his room and got his hat and coat and bag he had not yet unpacked. When he started up again, Corbin settled back in his seat and Hayden gave his attention to the traffic lights on Government Street. He took no chances, then or later, and with the city behind him and the divided highway joining finally to make a two-way road, he got comfortable and settled down to his work. The highway signs told him that the state speed laws were sixty miles per hour in daylight and fifty at night, so he split the difference.

For a while the countryside was as he remembered it from his morning drive from the airport except that it was flatter here and more level. The headlights picked out oaks and pines, with here and there a pecan orchard. Later there was a marshy area for a few miles and presently a sign announced the city limits of Pascagoula. He took care going through the town. He had to stop for a toll bridge which carried them across a wide inlet or river, and then they rode inland again until they came to Ocean Springs. Here a long bridge carried them over a wide arm of Mississippi Sound, and then he was again watching the traffic lights as they went through Biloxi.

For the next thirty miles or so the scene was unchanging. Through Gulfport, Long Beach, and Pass Christian the divided road was straight, the scene unvarying. On the left the beach was broad and gently sloping; on the right, and stretching mile after mile as one town gave way to another, the highway was bordered by homes and spacious lawns, with only an occasional motel or restaurant or filling station to break the residential continuity.

The beach ended in another toll bridge, and Corbin, who had been dozing for the past hour, sat up and produced a quarter to make the payment. Beyond the bridge was the town of Bay St. Louis, and Corbin announced that in another twenty miles they would be in Louisiana. It was some distance beyond--Hayden was never quite sure just where they were--when the highway patrol car sped up behind them.

It happened suddenly and without warning. Hayden had been watching the speedometer regularly, with an eye for the rear-view mirror from time to time, but the patrol car was coming so fast that it was almost on top of them before he saw the flashing red light and heard the first wail of the siren.

His first reaction was one of sudden alarm and his foot eased instinctively on the accelerator. There was guilt and despair in his thoughts too until he saw that the speedometer said sixty, and then he could only wait, the sweat breaking out on him and his voice sinking as he said:

“Oh-oh.”

“What’s the matter?” Corbin said, and then he too heard the siren. “A cop?” he said. “Oh, Jesus!”

“What’s the speed limit?”

“Sixty, I guess.”

“That’s all I’m doing.”

“Hold it that way. If we get picked up now were dead.”

The driver behind touched the siren again briefly as Corbin finished. The lights were huge now in the rear-view mirror, so close that Hayden had to concentrate to keep a steady course. An instant later there was a quick _wssshhing_ sound and then there was nothing but the fading throb of the sedan’s motor and twin taillights that were quickly reduced to pinpoints before a slight curve blotted them from sight.

Hayden felt his heartbeat start to slow down and the back of his throat was dry. He swallowed, hearing Corbin’s soft curse. He let out his breath and made an effort to steady his nerves, a new exultancy working on him now that they were safe.

“What the hell was that?” he asked. “The guy must have been going ninety.”

“I don’t know,” Corbin said. “All I know is I’m glad he kept going.”

The road had been straight for a long time and they had gone over three small concrete bridges spaced two or three miles apart. Now, coming around the curve, they saw in the distance the larger bridge. Beyond it were flares, and as they drew close Hayden saw that it was a swing bridge with three spans. He would have slowed down here anyway, but the flares in the distance made him even more cautious. He was doing no more than thirty when he saw the uniformed man with a flashlight making sweeping gestures that ordered him to keep to the left.