Free Señor Saint by Leslie Charteris Page B

cannot get lost.”
    He gave directions.
    “But what about you?” Inkier protested half-heartedly.
    “We will come later, on one of the trucks. Do not wait up for us.”
    Almost incredulously, they found themselves getting into the Cadillac. Sherman picked up the suitcase full of money and put it in the front seat, and got in beside it, behind the wheel. “Don’t want to let it out of my sight,” he said with an empty grin. Manuel and Pablo kissed the hand of Doris, and she got in the back seat. Simon shook hands with them and got in after her. In a mere matter of seconds they were on their way.
    They must have driven more than a mile in unbelieving silence. It was as if they were afraid that even there the Enriquez brothers might overhear them, or that a careless word might shatter a fragile spell. …
    And then suddenly, uncontrollably, Doris electrified the stillness with a wild banshee shriek.
    “We did it!” she screamed. “We’ve got the money, and we’re off. We did it!”
    She leaned forward and grasped her husband’s shoulders and shook them.
    “Better than I ever hoped for,” Sherman said shakily. “I thought at the very least we’d have a chauffeur to get rid of. But we’re on our own already. Now pull yourself together!”
    Doris fell back, giggling hysterically.
    The Saint’s right hand slid unobtrusively under his coat, fingered the butt of the holstered automatic that he had not had to touch. Then it moved to the pocket where he kept his cigarettes.
    “So you didn’t really need me,” he said. “The Enriquez brothers were on the level, after their fashion. They may swindle the government and send peasants out to kill and be killed for them, but they pay their own bills. I guess there is honor among certain kinds of thieves.”
    Doris stopped squirming and sat up with a final cathartic gasp.
    “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m glad we ran into you. Terribly glad.”
    And suddenly her lips were on his mouth, hot and hungry, and her body against him and her arms winding around him, groping… . And then just as quickly she tore herself away, back to the far side of the seat; and he looked down and saw the gleam of his own gun in her hand, pointing at him.
    “You didn’t have to use it,” she said, a little breathlessly. “But I will, if you try anything. Pull over, Sherm. I’ve got him covered.”
    6.
    The Saint didn’t move. He gazed at her steadily, and rather sadly, while the car lost speed without any abruptness that might have spoiled her aim.
    “A perfect stranger,” he said, “a person who didn’t know your sweet loyal soul, would think you were going to take a mean advantage of me—to toss me aside like an old squeezed-out toothpaste tube.”
    “A perfect stranger would be right,” she said. “It was mighty nice to have you with us while there was a real chance that the Enriquez brothers might have been planning to pull a fast one. But now we’re out of that danger, you’re too expensive a partner. But you can still be useful. I figure that if we leave you for them or the cops to catch, when they find out who you are they won’t care so much about trying to find us.”
    “That’s how I thought you had it figured,” he said, nodding slowly.
    She peered at him sharply, then gave a short grating laugh.
    “You did?”
    The car had stopped now, and Inkier turned around in the front seat.
    “Don’t let’s waste any more time, Doris.”
    “Hold it, Sherm. This I have got to hear!”
    “You remember the lecture I promised you about your extravagant generosity, darling?” said the Saint. “That was the tip-off. When you came and offered me a third share of a prize like this, after you’d done all the groundwork, and with you and Sherman paying all the expenses out of your end, you overplayed it to a fare-thee-well. They just don’t make fairy godparents like that in the racket. If you’d offered me about twenty grand, say, just to keep my mouth shut and do this