Read Online Fear is the Key by Alistair MacLean - Free Book Online Page B

She wasn’t as cool and composedas she appeared and sounded; I could see a pulsebeating in her neck and it was going like a racingcar. ‘I mean, this man can’t do anything to menow?’
    â€˜Nary a thing,’ Jablonsky assured her.
    â€˜Thank you.’ A little sigh escaped her, as if itwasn’t until that moment that she really believedher terror was over, that there was nothing moreto fear. She moved across the room. ‘I’ll phone thepolice.’
    â€˜No,’ Jablonsky said quietly.
    She broke step. ‘I beg your pardon?’
    â€˜I said “No”,’ Jablonsky murmured. ‘No phone,no police, I think we’ll leave the law out of it.’
    â€˜What on earth do you mean?’ Again I couldsee a couple of red spots burning high up inher cheeks. The last time I’d seen those it hadbeen fear that had put them there, this time itlooked like the first stirrings of anger. When yourold man had lost count of the number of oilwells he owned, people didn’t cross your pathvery often. ‘We must have the police,’ she wenton, speaking slowly and patiently like someoneexplaining something to a child. This man is acriminal. A wanted criminal. And a murderer. Hekilled a man in London.’
    â€˜And in Marble Springs,’ Jablonsky said quietly.‘Patrolman Donnelly died at five-forty this afternoon.’
    â€˜Donnelly – died?’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘Areyou sure?’
    â€˜Six o’clock news-cast. Got it just before I tailedyou out of the parking-lot. Surgeons, transfusion,the lot. He died.’
    â€˜How horrible!’ She looked at me, but it was nomore than a flickering glance, she couldn’t bearthe sight of me. ‘And – and you say, “Don’t bringthe police.” What do you mean?’
    â€˜What I say,’ the big man said equably. ‘Nolaw.’
    â€˜Mr Jablonsky has ideas of his own, Miss Ruthven,’I said dryly.
    â€˜The result of your trial is a foregone conclusion,’Jablonsky said to me tonelessly. ‘For a man withthree weeks to live, you take things pretty coolly.Don’t touch that phone, miss!’
    â€˜You wouldn’t shoot me.’ She was already acrossthe room. ‘ You’re no murderer.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t shoot you,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t haveto.’ He reached her in three long strides – he couldmove as quickly and softly as a cat – took thephone from her, caught her arm and led her backto the chair beside me. She tried to struggle freebut Jablonsky didn’t even notice it.
    â€˜You don’t want law, eh?’ I asked thoughtfully.‘Kind of cramps your style a little bit, friend.’
    â€˜Meaning I don’t want company?’ he murmured.‘Meaning maybe I would be awful reluctant to firethis gun?’
    â€˜Meaning just that.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t gamble on it,’ he smiled.
    I gambled on it. I had my feet gathered under meand my hands on the arms of the chair. The backof my chair was solidly against the wall and I tookoff in a dive that was almost parallel to the floor,arrowing on for a spot about six inches below hisbreastbone.
    I never got there. I’d wondered what he coulddo with his right hand and now I found out. Withhis right hand he could change his gun over tohis left, whip a sap from his coat pocket and hita diving man over the head faster than anyoneI’d ever known. He’d been expecting somethinglike that from me, sure: but it was still quite aperformance.
    By and by someone threw cold water over meand I sat up with a groan and tried to clutch the topof my head. With both hands tied behind your backit’s impossible to clutch the top of your head. So Ilet my head look after itself, climbed shakily to myfeet by pressing my bound hands against the wallat my back and staggered over to the nearest chair.I looked at Jablonsky, and he was busy screwing aperforated