Man On The Run by Charles Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

real dish of a brunette.” There was a pause. “Be careful, Irish,” he said and hung up.
    I stepped out of the booth. A car was coming along this side of the street. I stopped, waiting for it to go past before I crossed. Then, as it passed a street light, I saw it was a police cruiser. I turned and started walking slowly along the sidewalk with my back to the oncoming lights. It came abreast of me. Then it stopped. My back congealed with sudden fear.
    “You looking for somebody out here?” a voice asked.
    It was all right; they couldn’t see my face in the darkness. I fought to make my voice sound casual. “No. Just taking a walk, officer.”
    “In the rain? Where do you live?”
    Before I could answer, a beam of light splashed full in my face. I tried to turn away, but it was too late. “Hey!” the voice barked. “Come back here!”
    I heard the car door slam behind me, and running footsteps. The one still in the car was. trying to hit me with the spotlight. “Stop, Foley! We’ll shoot.”
    I’d never make it to the corner alive. And if I did, the other one was following me in the car. I saw an opening between two concessions on my right, and shot into it. The rear of the buildings were in deep shadow, but I could make out the dark tracery of the Ferris wheel and some of the other rides. I cut sharply to the left, ran another fifty feet, and froze against the wall. Just beyond me was another corner. I inched quietly around it just as he shot into the open at the rear of the concessions, swinging the beam of the flashlight.
    “Joe!” he yelled. “Drive on around and cover the street in back so he can’t get to the next block. And call in.”
    The car went ahead and turned the corner. The one who was afoot had run-on back and was throwing the beam of his flashlight in wide arcs around the Ferris wheel. I slipped quietly along the narrow passage between two small buildings, and peered out into the beach boulevard. The Oldsmobile was gone. She’d managed to get away while they were occupied with me, and they probably hadn’t even noticed her. There was only one car in sight, some two blocks away. I shot across the street and over the edge of the far sidewalk. I landed on the sand, lost my balance, and fell. I was near one of the amusement piers, and the long expanse of beach stretched ahead of me, black and deserted in the rain. I got up and ran. I could hear sirens wailing behind me as police cars began pouring into the area. I ran until my side hurt and breathing was an agony.
    I sat down at last with my back against the concrete of the seawall. Rain drummed on the brim of my hat. Now they knew I was back in Sanport. And I’d lost Suzy. I didn’t know her address or her phone number, and even if I could find another outside phone booth and look it up in the book, I couldn’t call her. I had a hundred and seventy dollars in my pocket, but I didn’t have a dime.

Five
    My teeth began to chatter as water penetrated my clothes. I had to find some place to get out of the rain, and unless I discovered a hiding place before daybreak they’d have me. Every cop in town was alerted by now, and my description would be broadcast over the radio. With this black eye and the stubble of ginger-colored beard to give me away, I couldn’t move a foot without being recognized.
    How about a hotel, a skid-row flophouse? No. That would be suicidal. I still had a key to my own apartment in the Wakefield, but they’d have that covered front and rear. Maybe I could find my way to the railroad yards again and catch another freight. I fought down an impulse to cry out or laugh. I must be going crazy. That would put me right back where I’d started forty-eight hours ago. I was going around and around in an endless circle in a nightmare. I was a mechanical rabbit running forever in front of a pack of hounds along a dark racetrack in a rain that had been going on since the beginning of time. I thought of the bridge of the Dancy,