Free A Killer is Loose by Gil Brewer Page B

down, hard.
    The door chimes began clanging insistently and a man called, “Betty! Hey, Betty! For gosh sakes, open up!” The chimes clanged and clanged up on the wall beside the couch.
    Betty sat on the floor, staring between her legs. Her shoulders were shaking. She had tried hard, mighty hard, but it hadn’t worked. Angers was almost like a child sometimes. Almost …
    “Betty, where are you? Open the door!”
    “Go open the door, Mrs. Graham,” Angers said. “It’s your husband, isn’t it?”
    She rose to her knees and looked at him.
    “Isn’t that your husband?”
    She nodded, looking at him. Angers came out of the chair, took her arm, and helped her up. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll both go and let your husband in, Mrs. Graham.” He went over to the television set and picked up the Luger, turned and grinned at me. “Come on, pal. Lillian. We’ll all go let Mrs. Graham’s husband in, all right?”
    Sam Graham stood in the open door and looked at us. He frowned, then saw me, and smiled. “Hi, Steve. How’s Ruby?” “All right.”
    He walked inside and Angers closed the door and locked it and Sam saw the gun hanging at the end of Angers’ arm.
    “What’s this?” he said. Nobody spoke, nobody moved.
    Sam was round-faced, stocky, with curly brown hair and tiny twinkling beadlike eyes. He kept right on smiling, because that was his way. His face was red and peeling from sunburn and he carried the coat to his light blue suit. His shirt collar was undone and he looked tired and hot.
    “You can call me Ralph,” Angers said. “My name’s Ralph Angers. This is Lillian, Mr. Graham, and that’s Steve Logan, my pal. This girl here in the shorts is your wife, Mr. Graham. Now, if you’ll just come in and sit down?”
    Sam’s smile tipped up on one side and slipped off his chin. “Holy God!” he said. “You’re the—”
    “Oh, God, Sam—Sam!” Betty flung herself into her husband’s arm, hiding her face against his shoulder. She was slightly taller than Sam. He put his arm around her, holding his coat in his hand, and looked over her shoulder at Angers. “You’re the guy who killed Jake Halloran, right?”
    “Please,” Angers said. “Let’s all go in and sit down.”
    Nobody moved.
    “We’d better,” I said. “It would be better that way.” I found myself trying to warn Sam with my eyes, the way Lillian had done with Betty. Sam patted Betty’s shoulder and started walking toward the living room.
    “Did he hurt you, baby?” Sam asked.
    “No, Sam, no, no, no.”
    Lillian was beside me, with Angers behind us. I would have liked to talk with her. I kept thinking that, but what good would talk do?
    “There’s too many people, Steve,” Angers said. “I didn’t count on all this.”
    “It’s all right,” I said.
    “I just don’t like it, pal. We’ve got to get to work on those blueprints. I’ve got to send a wire regarding the hospital fund. We should get hold of a contractor.”
    “Won’t be able to do anything now, anyway,” I said. “Not until tomorrow.”
    “That’s true. That’s true, Steve. We’ll spend the night running over the plans. You’ll go wild about those plans, pal. It’s new, it’s something that’s never been done. They won’t laugh when they see it, pal.”
    Lillian shivered against me and I caught the look in her eyes. I suddenly wanted to hold her close. Of all these people, I felt closest to Lillian. Somehow, I felt, if anything was going to be done, it would be up to us. I had no idea how Sam Graham was going to act. He’d obviously heard of Angers and what he’d done, even heard his name. So news was getting around town. If we stayed put long enough, it would only be a matter of time before the law turned up. I didn’t like to think about that. It could be bad.
    Everybody sat down again, except Sam Graham. He dropped his coat on the couch and motioned to Betty to sit down and stood there looking at Angers.
    Angers went over and laid