Read You Never Know With Women for Free Online Page B

down on the table.
    The gun barrel dropped and Parker blinked at me as if he couldn’t understand what had happened. His vacant, bewildered look sent a chill up my spine. This guy was slaphappy. I’d seen that dazed, vacant expression duplicated on a row of faces in the psychopathic ward in the County jail. You couldn’t mistake it once you’d seen it: the face of a paranoiac killer.
    “Don’t get excited, Dominic,” Gorman said in his thin, scratchy voice. He hadn’t turned a hair, and I began to understand why he kept telling Parker to take it easy. It was his way of controlling this pixey when he was getting out of hand.
    Parker got slowly to his feet, stared at the gun as if he couldn’t understand what it was doing in his hand and walked quietly out of the room.
    I took out my handkerchief and touched my forehead with it. I was sweating: not much, but I was sweating.
    “You want to watch that guy,” I said evenly. “One of these days they’ll take him away, strapped to a stretcher.”
    “You have only yourself to blame, Mr. Jackson,” Gorman said, his eyes cold. “He’s all right if you handle him right. You happen to be the quarrelsome type. Have some more coffee?”
    I grinned.
    “I’m going to have a drink. He was going to shoot. Don’t kid me. You want to take that gun away from him before there’s an accident.”
    Gorman watched me pour the drink. There was an empty expression on his fat face.
    “You mustn’t take him too seriously, Mr. Jackson. He’s become attached to Miss Rux. I shouldn’t mention her again in your conversation.”
    “That guy? And what does she think of him?”
    “I don’t see what that has to do with you.”
    I took a drink and came back to the table.
    “Maybe you’re right,” I said.
    At nine o’clock Parker brought the car around to the front door. He was distant and calm and seemed to have got over his little spell.
    Gorman came down the steps to see us off.
    “Good luck, Mr. Jackson. Parker will give you last-minute instructions. I’ll have your money for you when you return.”
    I was looking up at the dark windows hoping to see her and I didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying. She wasn’t there.
    “We should be back in a couple of hours,” Parker said to Gorman. I could tell his nerves were jangling by the shake in his voice. “If we’re not, you know what to do.”
    “You’ll be back,” Gorman returned. His nerves were in better shape. “Mr. Jackson won’t make a mistake.”
    I hoped I wouldn’t. As we drove away into the darkness I leaned out of the window and looked back at the house. I still couldn’t see her.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    WE SAT in the car close to the twelve-foot wall that skirted the back of Brett’s house. It was cold and quiet up there on the mountain, and dark. We couldn’t see the wall or the car or each other. It was as if we were suspended in black space.
    “All right,” Parker said softly. “You know what to do. Take your time. Give me a whistle when you’re coming back. I’ll flash a light so you’ll find the rope again.”
    I breathed gently into the darkness. Even now I hadn’t decided what to do. I didn’t want to go in there. I knew, once I was over the wall, I would have put myself out on a limb, and if I slipped up, the least I could hope for was a stretch in jail. Redfern would fall over himself to put me away. He was only waiting for me to step out of line.
    Parker turned on the shaded dashboard lamp. I could see his hands and the shadowy outline of his head and shoulders.
    “Here’s the combination of the safe,” he said. “It’s easy to remember. I’ve put it on a card. One full turn to the right, half a turn back, another full turn to the right, and a half turn to the right again. Stop between each turn to give the tumblers a chance to drop into place. Don’t rush it. The only way to open the safe is to wait between each turn.”
    He gave me the card.
    “How about my dough?” I