Man On The Run by Charles Williams Page A

nothing unusual in his behavior.”
    “Yes, but damn it, we’re still just talking about Purcell. There’s no connection with Stedman except that they were partners on the Robbery Detail.”
    She gestured with the cigarette. “And that they’re both dead. Don’t forget that. However, there’s one more thing they had in common—the one you haven’t heard yet. Remember, I said Purcell had killed two men in line of duty?”
    “Yes?”
    “One of them was actually killed by Purcell and Stedman. On the twenty-second of December. See how your coincidence is stretching? In a little over a month Purcell commits suicide, and in less than three weeks after that Stedman is murdered.”
    I stared at her. “Yes—but, look. The police must have checked into it. A coincidence as obvious as that.”
    She nodded. “To some extent, yes. But remember, it takes at least two of anything to make a coincidence, and you killed Stedman. When you accept that, it falls apart.”
    I got up and walked across the room and back. “But, good God, they must have made some effort to check out any other angles.”
    “They did,” she replied. “Except that there don’t appear to be any. The man Stedman and Purcell killed was just another vicious hoodlum. His name was Danny Bullard, and he had a record going back ten years, with two convictions for armed robbery. He pulled a gun on. them when they tried to pick him up for questioning about a liquor store holdup. They had to shoot.”
    “He have any close relatives?”
    She shook her head. “There was an older brother, a waterfront goon named Ryan Bullard, but nobody’s seen him in years. He was tried and acquitted of killing a seaman during a strike, and after it was over he disappeared.”
    I lighted a cigarette. “How about a girl friend?”
    “Now you’re getting warmer. It has to be a girl. Assuming for the moment they were both murdered, the circumstances in both cases appear to be the same—the murderer could have been there clandestinely and by invitation. That spells only one thing, obviously. The only trouble is there doesn’t seem to be any girl.”
    “Except the one Red told me about,” I said. “I’ve got to locate her.”
    She nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what we’re going to prove if we do find her, but we’ve got nowhere else to start. However, you can’t risk going out of here until Monday, at least.”
    * * *
    We cooked the steak. I could feel strength flowing back into me with the food. We listened to the hi-fi and caught a news broadcast on the radio. They were still taking the city apart, block by block, looking for me. After awhile we went to bed. If the heroines of all Suzy’s novels were sexy, I thought, they came by it honestly. She was talented and passionate and an absolute delight, but somehow even after she cried out in ecstasy and collapsed you felt the desperate unhappiness or boredom that was goading her was still there and it hadn’t done her any good at all. I awoke during the night and she was gone. Switching on the light, I looked at my watch. It was shortly after three p.m.
    The door to the living room was ajar. I slipped on the bottom of the pajamas and went out. All the lights were on and she was sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room tossing cards into a silver bowl about ten feet away. She had on the black Capri pants, but was naked from the waist up except for the black silk eyeshade that was the only thing she ever wore in bed. It was pushed up over her forehead, and looked almost startling against the silvery blonde hair and fair skin. She was smoking a long black Mexican or Cuban cigarette, and beside her on the rug was a bottle of vodka and a glass. She was plastered.
    She looked at me, glassy-eyed. “‘Smatter, Irish? Can’t you sleep?”
    “No,” I said. I sat on the floor near her.
    She sailed another card toward the bowl. It missed. She said a word I’d have bet she didn’t even know.
    “What’s the