Free Nothing In Her Way by Charles Williams Page B

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    “Hello! Hello! Yes, Caffery speaking,” he yelled. “Who is it? Who? Goodwin? What the hell do you want?…Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” His voice became muffled, as if he’d put a hand over the transmitter, but we could still hear him. “Pipe down! Give me a chance to answer the phone. You’ll get your money.”
    Then he was back on the line. “Who is this now? Oh, Goodwin.” He broke into a string of profanity. “How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not for sale. I wouldn’t take a hundred thousand. What!” This last was apparently for somebody in the room. We could hear his voice going on, muffled. “Look, this is none of your business. I told you I’d get it, and I’ll do it. Go on out there and start fishing for that bit. I tell you my credit’ll be good anywhere in the state the minute we bring it in.”
    He was yelling into the telephone again. “Look, Goodwin, where can I get hold of you if I have to? Will you be at home? All right! All right! But don’t call me again. I’m busy.” He hung up.
    Goodwin was limp and ready to collapse over the table. “What do you think, Reichert?” was all he could say.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I think he’s in a jam himself, from the way it sounds. Sweat it out. I’ve got a hunch he’ll come to you.” Some hunch, I thought. Charlie was due to make his appearance just after eight tomorrow morning, according to the schedule.
    It was all over except tying up the loose ends and actually getting the money, and it was time to be getting ready to run. Bolton was already in the clear, of course, since he was in El Paso. As soon as Charlie got his hands on the cash, he’d head for El Paso, and Cathy was to come by from San Antonio at noon of the day we pulled it off and pick me up, and we’d meet them in El Paso at the hotel. We’d split up and be out of the state before Goodwin got wise, which would be when he met the train Friday at nine-thirty and there was nobody on it.
    * * *
    Mrs. Goodwin called me the next morning around seven-thirty. Would I come over and just talk to Goodwin? He’d been up all night, waiting for a call from Caffery, and there hadn’t been any. Maybe I could help her calm him down before he collapsed.
    I went over in a hurry, knowing Charlie’d be there at eight. Goodwin was on the telephone again, haggard and hollow-eyed. He had the hotel at Ludley, but Caffery had checked out. He put the phone back in its cradle, let out a long, hopeless sigh, and put his head down in his hands. He was whipped.
    I was looking out the window when the mud-spattered car drove up in front of the house. I saw Charlie get out, and put my hand on Goodwin’s shoulder. “Say, is this your man?” I nodded toward the street.
    He came alive as if I’d prodded him with a high-voltage cable. “Hell, yes,” he said excitedly, springing up. “But you’ll have to get out of sight. We don’t want to make him any more suspicious than he is now. I’ll tell you. Go up there at the head of the stairs.”
    I made it just as the doorbell rang. By peeking around the corner of the landing, I could see them. Charlie was wearing khaki pants and boots and a leather jacket with mud on it, and he looked as if he hadn’t shaved for three days or slept a week. His eyes were red, and there were lines of weariness around his mouth. Charlie was a perfectionist.
    He was magnificent. Watching him and listening, I was conscious of thinking what an actor the stage lost when Charlie became a crook. He was being crucified. Nobody kept faith with him. Goodwin was taking advantage of him. He’d bought the lease in good faith, and now Goodwin had found out some oil company wanted it, and his creditors were hounding him, and…He could make you cry.
    He said eighty thousand. Goodwin, recovering a little of his business sense now that there was hope, said thirty. They went at it again. Charlie came to a dead standstill at sixty-five thousand, and Goodwin