“She’s the first of them to get cold feet,” I said. “Or else someone fed her poison. To hell with her, anyway. I’m scared about Paula.”
Kerman said afterwards he had never been driven in a car so fast in his life, and he didn’t ever want to go through the experience again. At one time the speedometer needle was stuck at ninety-two, and kept there as we roared along the wide coast road with, the horn blaring.
A speed cop came after us, but he couldn’t make the grade. He stuck behind for two or three miles, then dropped out of sight. I guessed he would phone our description through to the next town, so I swung off the main road and went pelting along a dirt road that wasn’t much wider than twenty feet. Kerman just sat with his eyes closed and prayed.
We arrived in Orchid City fifteen minutes under the hour, and that was driving. We had done the sixty odd miles in forty-five minutes.
Paula had an apartment on Park Boulevard, a hundred yards or so from Park Hospital. We roared up the broad boulevard and braked outside the apartment block with a squeal of tyres like hog-day in a slaughter-house.
The elevator seemed to crawl to the third floor. It got there eventually, and we both raced down the passage to Paula’s apartment. I rammed my thumb in the bell-push and leaned my weight on it. I could hear the bell ringing, but no one answered. Sweat was standing out on my face as if I’d just come out of a shower.
I stood away.
“Together,” I said to Kerman.
We lunged at the door with our shoulders. It was a good door, but we were pretty good men. The third lunge snapped the lock and carried us into the neat little hall.
We had our guns in our fists as we went through the living-room to Paula’s bedroom.