The Big Bite Read online

  “Frankly, there’s no way we could know whether you still have it or not. There are too many places you could have hidden it. But that’s not the issue at hand. What we’ve been trying to establish is that no one else has it. There’s a subtle and, very important difference. You see?”

  “Look! Have you gone crazy? You heard me talking to the man I mailed it to—”

  “Did I?” she asked softly. She glanced at Tallant then, and said, “Or perhaps I should ask Dan.”

  I stared at one and then the other. “What in hell are you talking about?”

  She smiled. “I think perhaps we are confusing Mr. Harlan, He may not be able to keep up.”

  “You’ll have to judge that,” Tallant replied. “Appraising him was your job and, naturally, I haven’t had your opportunities.”

  I shot a quick look at him. On the outside, he was as calm and efficient as ever, but this was the second time I’d had the impression he was being ridden hard by something he was trying to keep under control.

  She caught it too. “Really, Dan.” Then she went on coolly. “Of course appraising him was my job, and I think I’ve done it. Mr. Harlan is what he himself would call a tough guy, but he’s not an utter fool. He’s almost completely insulated against every human emotion except greed, and he mistakes insensitivity for courage. He has imagination and daring of a sort, enough to conceive a plan like this and to attempt to carry it through alone, but not enough to recognize the flaws in it, and subtlety is not his dish of tea.”

  He grunted. “Well, maybe we’d better bring him up to date.” He shifted the gun just slightly and went on in a level, cold voice, “You’ll recall, Harlan, you, told us we had two possible ways out. We could pay you, or, if we were convinced you were working alone, we could kill you. It was nice of you to point that out, even if a little unnecessary. So then you proceeded to prove to us that you were not working alone. The only trouble with it is we’re still not convinced you proved your point. And since neither of us is stupid enough to place himself at the mercy of a blackmailer for the rest of his life if there’s any other way out, we’re going to insist on a little more proof before we buy—”

  I broke in on him. “Skip the diagram,” I said. “You think I’m bluffing, so you’re going to call me. But have you stopped to think that could be just a little dangerous? You’d never know you were wrong until the police knocked on the door.”

  He nodded. “We know that. Or rather, let’s say we realize we’re supposed to be aware of it, as part of the rules. But there’s another and slightly more subtle angle to it I don’t think you’ve considered yet.

  “However, let’s take all the aspects in their proper order so we’re sure we understand each other. First, if something happens to you, your accomplice is going to turn that tape and your letter over to the police.

  Right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Very well. Now. That raises an interesting question. Just how does he know something has happened to you?”

  I grinned coldly. So that was their angle, all along. Catching it back there in the hotel room that morning had saved my life.

  “How does he know?” I asked. “Why, when he quits hearing from me, of course.”

  He nodded. “I see. And just when was the last time he did hear fr6m you?”

  I looked at her and grinned. “Tell him, honey.”

  She returned my glance with an enigmatic smile, and said, “No. You tell him.”

  I shrugged. “Sure, if you insist. Don’t you want him to know you were standing there at the foot of the bed, naked, while you listened to me talking to him?” I turned to Tallant. “It was around ten-fifteen yesterday morning.”

  His eyebrows raised. “You’re sure of this?”

  “Ask your lady friend,” I said. “That was what she was there for, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, we know you made the call, all right. The thing I’m questioning is whether the man you talked to even knew anything about this.”

  I felt the little shiver go up my back again. It was unaccountable, because I knew there was no way on earth they could have checked the call. She couldn’t have heard me give the name to the operator, and I’d kept my eye on her from then on, to be sure she hadn’t tried to get it out of the hotel operator. She had never been out of my sight a minute.

  “Nuts,” I said. “Now you’re beginning to talk like an idiot. Why don’t you ask her to repeat the conversation?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have to. I know who the man was you talked to, and I don’t think he’s in the blackmail business, or about to go in it. His name is George Gray. He’s vice president and second largest stockholder in the Gray Midcontinent Equipment Company of Fort Worth, son of the founder, worth around three-quarters of a million dollars, married, has two children, member of the Chamber of Commerce, and the best country club, and he’s quite active in his church, in Community Chest and hospital drives, and in several civic organizations. That sound like a blackmailer to you?”

  My mouth dropped open. I could only stare at him.

  “Now, Harlan,” he went on coldly, “what we’re interested in finding out from you is whether you’re going to insist Gray is your accomplice, which is ridiculous, or if not, why you called him instead of the real accomplice— if you even have one.”

  I couldn’t say anything. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  He smiled coldly. Still holding the gun across his knees with his right hand, he reached into his jacket pocket with his left and brought something out. I stared. It was a roll of recorder tape.

  “Great machine, the recorder,” he said. “Private detectives use them, too. Your telephone in that hotel room was bugged after the first day.”

  Then he had both sides of the conversation.

  He must have seen it in my face. “You’re so right, Harlan. Gray didn’t even know what you were talking about, as near as I can gather. He thought you were referring to the job he offered you. I don’t know what was actually in the package you sent him, but obviously it wasn’t recorder tape. So let’s hear your story, and you’d better make it good.”

  I tried to pull myself together and get my mind to work. They were deadly as hell, and they were closing in on me. Only one thing was clear, and that was the moment they were absolutely certain I was alone in this thing they’d kill me like erasing a mistake in a letter. Maybe I was done for now, but the only thing left was to go on bluffing. They hadn’t quite made up their minds yet, or I wouldn’t be alive now.

  I leaned forward and tried to make my voice sound tough. “My story? It’s exactly the same thing I told you from the first. You know that roll of recorder tape will hang you. She saw me put it in the mail. You know I haven’t got it, because you searched the cabin and the car. Therefore, somebody else’s got it. You don’t know who, and there’s no way you can find out. Now, if you want to take a chance I’m lying about it, go ahead. There’s only one way you can lose, and that’s to lose all the way. The first time you’ll know you were wrong is when the cops knock on the door. You’re tough, but | not that tough. Nobody is.”

  “Why not?” she asked innocently. “Look at it yourself. You can see what the odds are. And if you’re wrong you go to the chair. That’s a rough dose.”

  She turned toward him and smiled fleetingly. “You see, Dan? Psychological fine points are not Mr. Harlan’s forte.”

  “Put it away,” I said. “You’re not even making sense.”

  “I think we are,” he said. “Remember, I told you there was another angle you hadn’t considered?”

  “Sure. More double-talk.”

  “Not at all. It’s quite real, and it has a definite bearing on the validity of the threat. We’re not in as much immediate danger as you think.”

  “Bat sweat.”

  “I’m serious. Just listen for a moment. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re telling the truth. We grant you an accomplice.”

  “That’s nic
e of you.”

  “Let’s be very original and call him X. And now we stipulate further that you’ve come up here to do something that could be highly dangerous, and that you have vanished.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “The specified time has run out with no word from you. He assumes, correctly enough, that something has happened to you. So what does he do?”

  “Now, that’s a bright question. What do you think he does? He turns the tape and the letter over to the police.”

  Tallant shook his head with a faint smile. “No.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Of course he does.”

  “I don’t think so, and right there is the point you overlooked. Your whole threat is just a threat on paper, an arbitrary rule set up in an imaginary game. He doesn’t turn it over to the police, for the simple reason that he would have everything to lose and nothing whatever to gain.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake—”

  The smile became a little colder. “You don’t see it yet? What, specifically, does he stand to gain? Revenge? Don’t be stupid yourself. What the hell does he care about you, or what happened to you? He’s not a relative, because you have none. We checked.”

  “He’s a friend of mine—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. In your business, friends are expendable.”

  “So what does he stand to lose? Eight cents worth of stamps.”

  They exchanged glances. “What does he stand to lose?” he asked. “Really, Harlan. He stands to lose a hundred thousand dollars.”

  I saw what he was driving at, and I could feel the walls move a little closer around me.

  He went on like a professor giving a lecture. “This tape you have is worth nothing in itself. It has only what we will call potential value, or value solely as a threat. The minute you carry out the threat, its value drops to zero. You understand that, I suppose? The police would give him nothing for it, obviously. All they’d do, if they found out who he was, would be to put him in jail for not giving it to them sooner. So there we come right to the heart of the matter.

  “X has something that has a potential value of—to use your own figure—a hundred thousand dollars. That is, as long as he hangs onto it and threatens us with it. So why Would he turn it over to an ungrateful bunch of slobs like the police and have its value drop to zero when he can retain it himself and keep the value alive? Is he insane?”

  I tried to say something. I couldn’t.

  He continued. “So what happens? Nothing, in our opinion. Except that sometime in the future, after you have disappeared completely, friend X comes sidling up to us with the same old sad story.”

  I got myself started at last. “So what have you accomplished? You have to pay him off.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. If you do have an accomplice, we’re probably ruined, because the thing becomes an endless chain and could go on forever. You’d bleed us white, or we’d have to try to escape. But we’re almost certain now you haven’t; got one.”

  He stopped, and the room was silent except for the faint humming of the air-conditioner somewhere in the house. I tried to estimate my chances of getting to him without being cut in two by that shotgun, and came up with an even zero.

  He apparently read my thoughts. He shook his head “Not now. We’re going to wait you out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to see if X does show up. We don’t think he will, but if he does we haven’t got any more to lose by waiting for him than we have by being suckers and paying you now. We’re going to keep you here. Nobody saw you come in. Nobody knows where you are. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you’ve already disappeared, and could be dead.”

  I felt cold all over. “You can’t get away with it.”

  “I think so,” he replied calmly. “Do you know what a trial balloon is?”

  I just stared at him.

  “It’s a political dodge. A politician deliberately lets something leak to sample public reaction before he commits himself. If he gets the wrong reaction, he can deny the whole thing. That’s your status at the moment. You’re a trial balloon.”

  The room was silent. Nobody moved. “You see?” he went on. “It’s an unusual sort of thing. We’re going to find out exactly what would happen if you turned up missing. Before you actually do, that is.”

  15

  I didn’t have a chance; they had me cut off from every direction. Now that it was too late I could see why Purvis had approached me. He’d had sense enough to know he couldn’t bluff it through alone; they were too hard and dangerous for that. They had to know positively there were two people in it—and one of them forever out of reach—before they could be handled. He’d studied Cannon’s death for a long time and he’d studied her; even without knowing for sure who the man was in the case he’d been aware of the kind of people he was up against. And still they’d managed to kill him.

  They’d kill me the same way. It wasn’t a mere matter of getting that tape back; as long as anybody on earth knew they’d killed Cannon they were in danger. They were pretty sure right now I was the only one, and as soon as they were convinced of it they’d get rid of me. Every hour that passed without someone else’s showing up was making them more certain. And nobody else was going to show up.

  The cold voice went on, “Your car has been abandoned in New Orleans. The cabin is closed; your gear and fishing tackle are gone—”

  I leaned forward. “Listen. Somebody’s bound to I know she was out there. Or that you were out there. You’ve been seen driving my car. Maybe driving it out. You say there’s been nobody there looking for me, but you were gone long enough to drive the car to New Orleans. I was seen in Shreveport by God knows how many people. I was registered at a hotel there—” I stopped.

  He smiled. “As Mr. John Abernathy, of Kansas City.”

  “Listen! I called George Gray from there—”

  “Gray didn’t know where you were calling from. He probably just assumed it was from here.” He paused for a moment, and then went on. “Nobody knew she was down there at that cabin. Nobody saw you leave there with her. That end of the lake is the most isolated place in the county. I drove your car out at night—after I’d searched, it and put it in running order again. As far as knowing nobody had come out there while I was gone to New Orleans with your heap—that was easy. I piled up a little mound of dirt in each rut near the edge of the clearing. When I came back they were still there; no car had been across them. They’re there yet, or were four hours ago. Harlan, you’ve disappeared. You didn’t even leave a ripple. And nobody gives a damn.”

  “George Gray—”

  “So you won’t call him Thursday. He’ll ask the Governor to order out the National Guard, won’t he? He offered you a job; you accepted it, and then changed your mind. He’s going to get excited about that?”

  The room fell silent again as they glanced at each other. I tried to think. I couldn’t come up with anything. There had to be a way out. But where was it?

  “You can’t get away with it,” I said. “Look. You were gone from town long enough to drive a car to New Orleans. They’re going to wonder why your shop’s closed. The whole thing’s screwy. You give yourself away in a dozen places—”

  He shook his head. “I drove your car to New Orleans Saturday night and came back Sunday on a bus, while I was supposed to be on a fishing trip to Caddo Lake and when the shop was closed anyway. I’ve checked this cabin out there at night, coming in from a different road farther down the lake and walking up about two miles. I’m in the shop every day; I come in through the back way here at night. Everything’s perfectly normal on the surface; there’s nothing suspicious at all. Nobody saw you come in here, and nobody’ll ever see you go out. The maid has a week off to visit her family in Louisiana.”

  A week. Sometime within a week.

  I fought down an impulse to cry out at him. “Good God,” I said, “do you mean you’d go through all this just to keep from paying m
e off and getting the tape back?”

  “It isn’t merely a question of the tape. We think you hid that somewhere. I’ve looked for it, and can’t find it. The chances are, nobody’ll ever find it. It’s you. We’re in this too deep to have anyone running around loose who knows about it. You must have realized the chances you were taking when you walked into it; I don’t see that you’ve got any kick coming now that it’s backfired on you. Get up.”

  There was nothing else to do. I stood up. He got out of the chair, holding the gun, and began backing out the doorway into the hall. “Follow me, and don’t get any closer.”

  In the hallway he clicked on a light switch. I passed the open door to the bath and came abreast another door on the left. He stopped and nodded curtly. “Open that.”

  I opened it.

  “Turn around and stand in the doorway. Don’t try to jump in and slam it, because I’ll cut you in two. That’s right. Go on in slowly.”

  They both followed me in, Tallant first with the shotgun in my back. The light was already on in here. It was another bedroom, smaller than the other. It had one window opposite the door, facing the patio, but there were heavy drapes over it and they were drawn. There was a single bed with its head up against the wall under the window, and a night table stood beside it. The floor was covered with a gray carpet, and there was an armchair and a bridge lamp against the wall to the left.

  “Lie down on the bed,” he commanded.

  I turned and looked at him. He was near the door, at least eight feet away, with the gun pointing right at my chest.

  “Go on,” he said flatly. “I won’t take any chances with you.”

  I lay down. She came past him and around to my left side. Reaching down, she picked up something dangling from the side of the bed. I saw what it was. It was a pair of handcuffs made fast to the steel frame of the bed with a short length of chain.

  “Don’t try to grab her,” he warned me.

  She caught my left hand and snapped the cuff over the wrist. Then she came around to the other side of the bed and made my right hand fast with another on that side. I could move my hands, but there wasn’t enough slack in the chains to bring them together. He put down the gun, tied my feet together with a piece of rope that had been lying in the chair, and then secured them to the foot of the bed. Forcing my mouth open, he shoved a wadded handkerchief in it and plastered adhesive tape across my face to keep it in. She had gone back to the doorway and was silently watching. There was no expression on her face at all—no pity, no regret, not even any hate. It was just something that had to be done, and they did it. They’d kill me the same way.