Nothing In Her Way by Charles Williams Read Free Book Online

self-possession about him. “Here,” he said. He slid a cartridge into the chamber of the gun and handed it to me. “Try it.”
    “You don’t mind?”
    He shook his head and smiled. “If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you.”
    I walked over and lay prone on the sand, sliding my arm into the sling.
    “You’ve shot them before?” It was more of a statement than a question.
    “Only in the Army,” I said.
    “Hold right on,” he said. “It’s sighted for two hundred.”
    I didn’t ask him about the trigger pull. It was lighter than I’d expected, and I missed the bull. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to look like a sharpshooter. I worked the bolt, throwing the empty shell out on the sand, and watched to see if he picked it up. He did.
    “Oh, you save those?” I asked innocently.
    He grinned. “Sure. I reload them.”
    “You do?” I did a big take on it, as if I’d never heard of it.
    “Yes. It’s cheaper. And you can put up just the load you want.”
    “I never thought of that,” I said. “It sounds interesting.”
    He agreed politely that it was, and I let it drop. To hurry now would be stupid and dangerous. But I had found the opening I was looking for.

Five
    The night was still and cold, and the sand looked like snow in the moonlight. I flicked the cigarette lighter and looked at my watch. It was seven-ten.
    I was standing near the highway about two miles east of town, where a dirt road turned off and ran south through the dunes I was supposed to meet her here at seven. Having her come into town would be too risky, since she had spent a week there talking to practically everyone in that phony survey of hers. We couldn’t be seen together.
    A few cars went past, going very fast. I waited. In about five minutes I saw one coming more slowly. I watched eagerly. It might be Cathy, looking for the turnoff. It was. I was on the inside of the turn so the lights wouldn’t swing across me, just in case it was somebody else. The car pulled off and stopped twenty or thirty yards from the highway. I could see the Cadillac fishtails and the New York license plates. I jumped into the ruts and started trotting toward her.
    The second pair of lights almost hit me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw them swinging as the other car made the turn, faster than she had, and I dived for the brush. I made it off the left side of the road just as they straightened out and spattered against the rear of the Cadillac. And then the car was beyond me and sliding to a stop almost bumper to bumper with hers.
    I came to my feet and onto the road, running toward them. There had been no time to think. It might be Charlie or Bolton, or both—but why another car? They’d have been with her. I couldn’t even make myself say the other name. I was still eight or ten yards away, running desperately and silently on the sand, when the car door opened and a man got out. He was a small black figure in the moonlight and he was carrying something in his hand.
    “All right, sweetie,” he said. “Pile out.”
    I heard the low-throated rumble of power as she gunned the Cadillac. The rear wheels spun for an instant and sand flew up like spray. He shouted something, and was bringing up the thing he held in his hand. Moonlight glinted on it. It was too big to be a revolver, and now he had both hands on it. I was still a long leap from him when I saw what it was. The car was moving now, at last, as he swung it, and then I fell on him.
    I fell on him all over at once. It was like tackling an empty overcoat. He was just a bagful of light bones inside and he folded like a swatted spider. One barrel of the sawed-off shotgun went off with a roar as we crashed down, and then it was either under us or loose somewhere in the sand. I got to one knee, grabbed him by the shoulder, flipped him onto his back, and swung. He jerked and straightened out. It was Donnelly. In the moonlight he looked like a child who’d been starved to death.
    I was raging,