American Pulp by Ed Gorman Bill Pronzini Martin H Greenberg

Author:Ed Gorman, Bill Pronzini, Martin H Greenberg [Ed Gorman, Bill Pronzini, Martin H Greenberg]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The motor of Ira’s car rumbled monotonously in the fog that surrounded it like a soft wrapping of woolly, wet cotton. Lapswich was driving. Brent, sitting beside him, couldn’t see more than ten feet beyond the car’s radiator, but Lapswich seemed to find his way by instinct. The car skidded going around a curve, tires chewing vainly at soft, damp sand. Brent felt a little chill along his spine, listening to the sullen sound of waves invisible somewhere far below them. The car jerked, straightened out.

“How close are we to the ocean?” he asked.

“Quite a ways—down,” Lapswich answered absently. “This road runs along them high cliffs south of town.”

“It’s pretty narrow,” Brent said. “Aren’t we liable to meet another car unexpectedly?”

“Nope,” said Lapswich. “Nobody uses this road. It’s been condemned. It runs too close to the cliff edge. Keeps crumbling off all the time.”

He jerked the wheel suddenly. The car swerved, and Brent caught a glimpse of a crevice three feet wide that extended into the center of the road.

“That’s a bad place,” Lapswich said. “I was lookin’ for it, but I come on it a little sooner than I expected.”

Brent looked over his side of the car and found that the side of the road was no longer there. He could see nothing but fog rolling dimly.

“Hey!” he said, breath catching in his throat.

Lapswich turned the wheel, and the side of the road appeared again. “Pretty close there,” he said. “Oughta put up a rail or something. We’re almost there now. What do you think we’ll find out here?”

“I don’t know,” Brent said. “I’m just hoping.”

“Why do you suppose that Faro killed that Miller woman if she was his accomplice?”

“Faro specialized in jewels,” Brent answered. “The insurance people kept pretty close track of him, as close as they could. There was a rumor that he and his accomplice had split up. That must have been true. He probably ditched her. She didn’t like it, and she followed him down here to declare herself in on this job. He wasn’t having any. I told you he was a killer. He was already wanted for two murders. One more wouldn’t make any difference to him. So he just got rid of her. He didn’t figure on her being found so quickly.”

“You think he was the one that shot at you and Ira and Fuller when you was comin’ into town?”

“No. And he wasn’t the one that shot at me last night.”

“How do you figure?”

“The man that shot at Fuller and Ira meant just to scare us. That must have been the reason. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense. Faro wouldn’t want to scare us. And if he had been the one that shot at me last night, he’d have hit me. Faro’s a dead shot, and he doesn’t get excited. The fellow that shot at me was all in an uproar. He cut the light wires by the window—and then shot when it was dark and he couldn’t see. Faro would have shot me first.

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