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would be watching Route 7 closely, Billy was certain, but maybe not the railroad. The railroad yards were straight east of where he huddled in that lean-to.
He shoved the map in his pocket and pulled the topcoat tighter around his thin neck. He moved out carefully. Billy didn’t care a damn for anything now, including his brother. If Tony had let Billy handle that gambler instead of losing his head and lousing it up, why, he wouldn’t be where he was. Getting that girl and grabbing the fifty Gs were the only things that mattered in the world right now.
And nobody was going to stop him.
chapter four
Ann Burley lived one mile west of Arrow Junction, just one eighth of a mile of dirt road off Route 7. You could see the house from the graveled snow-covered highway even through the continuing storm. Bob Saywell, when he drove by on his way to Graintown, slowed just a little, eyes narrowing above his fatty pink cheeks. Dr. Hugh Stewart’s car was parked in the yard. There was yet no sign of Ted Burley’s pickup truck.
Bob Saywell could still remember with pumping anger how Dr. Hugh Stewart had carried the limp figure of Ann Burley to a table. He could remember how he’d rubbed her wrists, touched her forehead gently. Bob Saywell could feel his own fingers twitch as he thought about that.
Bob Saywell swore. It was not a profane swearing. But rather a vicious repeating of Biblical declaiming: “Thou harlot! Thou slut!”
Because he was almost sure now. By the time Dr. Hugh Stewart had revived Ann Burley, insisting that he drive her home, Bob Saywell had hurried back to the kitchen. He’d taken the newspaper clipping from under the canister and looked at it again carefully. There was almost no doubt. The vague familiarity of Ann Burley’s face when she had first arrived in Arrow Junction with Ted Burley was explained. She was Ann Rodick. The witness in that trial.
Bob Saywell’s cheeks fairly quivered. She’d lied about her identity to Ted Burley. She’d lied to every decent citizen in this community. Now there had been the appearance of those gangsters in Graintown. And Ann Burley had fainted when she’d heard about that.
All right. Soon he would absolutely confirm it. And then…
Bob Saywell was traveling on Route 7. Route 7 created, in effect, a long S over a span of three hundred miles. Arrow Junction was very near the center of that S.
There were, at that moment, two cars traveling toward the center.
One of them was a 1948 Ford sedan containing Reverend and Lottie Andrews, who were just returning toward Arrow Junction from a ministers’ conference in Babcock. The other was a new Chrysler containing Sam and Gloria Dickens, who were returning to the West Coast from a visit at the small town of Bannerton, Sam Dickens’s old home town.
Of the two cars, only Sam Dickens’s carried a radio. The strongest beam you could get was from the direction in which Sam Dickens was driving. West. The beam came from Station KWTC in Babcock. Right now a local announcer at KWTC was relating the latest news on the hunt for Billy Quirter. He was doing it with a monotoned twangy Midwest accent, and the words were merely an irritating hum of sound in the ears of both Sam and Gloria Dickens. Neither was listening carefully enough to realize that the search for Billy was going on in the path of their intended route. Both were angry, as the Chrysler rolled with slow uncertainty through the storm.
Finally Gloria reached out and snapped off the radio. “Some goddam sport.”
Sam Dickens shifted his hands on the steering wheel. He was a large man with beefy hands and a florid face. He would be forty-seven on his next birthday, and right now his neck ached as though he were going to be ninety-seven. Good God, he thought, what a trip! But to Gloria he said, “Now take it easy, honey. And do you have to swear?”
Gloria uttered a four-letter word that made Sam Dickens’s face turn even more florid.
“You know I
He shoved the map in his pocket and pulled the topcoat tighter around his thin neck. He moved out carefully. Billy didn’t care a damn for anything now, including his brother. If Tony had let Billy handle that gambler instead of losing his head and lousing it up, why, he wouldn’t be where he was. Getting that girl and grabbing the fifty Gs were the only things that mattered in the world right now.
And nobody was going to stop him.
chapter four
Ann Burley lived one mile west of Arrow Junction, just one eighth of a mile of dirt road off Route 7. You could see the house from the graveled snow-covered highway even through the continuing storm. Bob Saywell, when he drove by on his way to Graintown, slowed just a little, eyes narrowing above his fatty pink cheeks. Dr. Hugh Stewart’s car was parked in the yard. There was yet no sign of Ted Burley’s pickup truck.
Bob Saywell could still remember with pumping anger how Dr. Hugh Stewart had carried the limp figure of Ann Burley to a table. He could remember how he’d rubbed her wrists, touched her forehead gently. Bob Saywell could feel his own fingers twitch as he thought about that.
Bob Saywell swore. It was not a profane swearing. But rather a vicious repeating of Biblical declaiming: “Thou harlot! Thou slut!”
Because he was almost sure now. By the time Dr. Hugh Stewart had revived Ann Burley, insisting that he drive her home, Bob Saywell had hurried back to the kitchen. He’d taken the newspaper clipping from under the canister and looked at it again carefully. There was almost no doubt. The vague familiarity of Ann Burley’s face when she had first arrived in Arrow Junction with Ted Burley was explained. She was Ann Rodick. The witness in that trial.
Bob Saywell’s cheeks fairly quivered. She’d lied about her identity to Ted Burley. She’d lied to every decent citizen in this community. Now there had been the appearance of those gangsters in Graintown. And Ann Burley had fainted when she’d heard about that.
All right. Soon he would absolutely confirm it. And then…
Bob Saywell was traveling on Route 7. Route 7 created, in effect, a long S over a span of three hundred miles. Arrow Junction was very near the center of that S.
There were, at that moment, two cars traveling toward the center.
One of them was a 1948 Ford sedan containing Reverend and Lottie Andrews, who were just returning toward Arrow Junction from a ministers’ conference in Babcock. The other was a new Chrysler containing Sam and Gloria Dickens, who were returning to the West Coast from a visit at the small town of Bannerton, Sam Dickens’s old home town.
Of the two cars, only Sam Dickens’s carried a radio. The strongest beam you could get was from the direction in which Sam Dickens was driving. West. The beam came from Station KWTC in Babcock. Right now a local announcer at KWTC was relating the latest news on the hunt for Billy Quirter. He was doing it with a monotoned twangy Midwest accent, and the words were merely an irritating hum of sound in the ears of both Sam and Gloria Dickens. Neither was listening carefully enough to realize that the search for Billy was going on in the path of their intended route. Both were angry, as the Chrysler rolled with slow uncertainty through the storm.
Finally Gloria reached out and snapped off the radio. “Some goddam sport.”
Sam Dickens shifted his hands on the steering wheel. He was a large man with beefy hands and a florid face. He would be forty-seven on his next birthday, and right now his neck ached as though he were going to be ninety-seven. Good God, he thought, what a trip! But to Gloria he said, “Now take it easy, honey. And do you have to swear?”
Gloria uttered a four-letter word that made Sam Dickens’s face turn even more florid.
“You know I
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