October 23, 2010

The Big Bite by Charles Williams(3)

‘’Private Investigator Slain,” the second page story led off.
“The body of Winton L. Purvis, 38, private detective and
former insurance investigator, was discovered early this
afternoon in his apartment at 10325 Can line Street. He
was apparently struck on the head with terrific force by
some heavy object, though no trace of the murder weapon
was found at the scene. Police are as yet without clue as to
the identity of the assailant, but are convinced he is a large
man of great physical strength.”
There wasn’t much more. Apparently it had broken just in
time to get the bare essential facts in the last edition;
there’d be more tomorrow. But there was enough here to
start it rolling—the address and the fact they were looking
for a big man. I hoped that cabby wasn’t sitting behind his
wheel somewhere in the city as I was, leafing through the
paper.
Well, the ball had to bounce—one way or the other. But I
couldn’t sit here and waste time. I switched on the ignition
and rolled out into the river of traffic. Mrs. Cannon, here I
come.
The Big Bite — 41
5
Wayles . . .

I tried to remember it as I drove. It was a small town, a
county seat, built in the old style around a square and a
brick courthouse where pigeons cooed in the early
mornings and made a mess of the red walls with bird lime at
all times of the day. I’d lived, in several just like it when I
was a kid growing up; there are a thousand of them in the
south. Just driving through, you wouldn’t think there’d be
anybody in one of there who’d be worth $300,000, but it
would fool you. There are always a few, the second and
third generations, the business families who made it in
cotton and timber and sometimes in oil or banks or real
estate. I shook my head impatiently, watching the
headlights bore a tunnel in the darkness. That didn’t matter.
I knew she had it. I was trying to remember something
about the town. I thought there was a hotel at one end of
the square. I hoped there was, for it was important.
It was odd now, to think I had been there for near five
weeks and was still this vague about the actual layout of the
square, but I hadn’t lingered after I got out of the hospital.
As soon as I was able to drive I just got into the repaired
Buick and shoved for Oklahoma City. Wayles? I’ve had
Wayles, buster, and I give it to you. In Oklahoma City I’d
had some more medics proofread the leg for typographical
errors and they said the local talent had done a good job
The Big Bite — 42
and that was as good as ever. It was there I’d finally signed
clear with the insurance company.
There were two or three likely-looking motels with
vacancy signs out in the edge of town, but I passed them up.
If I had to, I could come back, but I wanted that hotel if it
was where I thought it was. The highway from Houston
came in the southwest corner of the square, ran along the
south side, and then went on straight east. It was after ten
p.m. and few cars were on the street. I passed the
courthouse and slowed, and then I saw it on the east side of
the square, just where I vaguely remembered it and hoped
it would be. The sign said Hotel Enders.
It was near the middle of the block. I turned and went up
the east side and slid into the loading zone. The entrance
was through a screen door between a dress shop and a
jewelry store, both closed now but throwing light out onto
the walk from their display windows. I went down a narrow
corridor on cocoa matting. There was a small lobby at the
end and some stairs beyond the desk. A bridge lamp was
burning near the cigarette machine and to the left was a
wire rack of paperback books. An airplane type fan on a
standard was droning away in a corner, keeping the stale
air in circulation even if it didn’t cool anything. A fat woman
with short gray hair and jowls like a bulldog was reading a
magazine at the desk. A colored boy about eight feet long
was folded up and stacked in one of the armchairs against
the other wall, asleep, with sections of arms and legs
dangling out onto the floor. He wore an old maroon jacket
with an ROTC type collar, and shoes like overnight bags.
The woman looked up at me from her magazine with the
unwinking stare of one of the more haughty types of turtles.
“Yes?” she asked.
“You got a single with bath?” I asked. “In front?”
She nodded. I signed the register. She looked around the
edge of me,” and snapped, “Raymond!”
Nothing happened. I put the pen back in the hold and
turned just as she let him have the other barrel, “Raymond!”
He whimpered a little, and moved one of his feet which
was a neat trick in itself without a dolly. “Don’t get him up,”
I said. “He might fall on somebody. I’ll bring in the bags.”
The Big Bite — 43
“Parking behind the hotel,” she said. “Turn in at the alley
two doors down.” She nodded her head toward the corridor
going on through to the rear of the building. “Just bring
your bags in through the back.”
I drove the car around and unloaded. It was very dark.
Two other cars were parked in the area. I had already put
the gun and binoculars in one of the bags. Locking the
typewriter in the trunk because I didn’t need it tonight, I
took the two bags and the recorder, which was in a case
that looked like any other piece of luggage when it was
closed—and walked toward the oblong of light where the
rear door of the hotel had opened. Raymond shuffled out
and took the bags; I held onto the recorder. He led the way
through the lobby and up a flight of stairs. The room was
near the end of the corridor on the second floor. He
unlocked the door and we went in. He snapped on the light.
It was any third-rate hotel room anywhere, iron bedstead,
dingy spread, worn carpet, and a dresser covered with a
pane of glass under which was the card that would tell you
about the Bonton Cleaners and the Black Cat Café. The only
thing I actually saw in it was the window. The blind was
pulled all the way down so I couldn’t see out now, but I had
a hunch the location was just right. Raymond goofed
around, opening the closet and then the bathroom door as if
he half expected bats to fly out of them. Maybe he’d leave in
the next day or two and I could get a look out that window.
“Anything else, Cap’n?” he asked.
“No,” I said. I handed him a dollar. “Go buy your feet a
bowl of chili.”
He drifted out and closed the door. I threw the bolt,
snapped off the light, and stepped quickly across to the
window. Raising the blind, I looked out. It was good. It was
like a sniper’s nest, covering a pass. The whole square was
spread out in front of and below me. I could see everything
except the area directly beyond the courthouse and the
section of the sidewalk just under me. If he lived in Wayles,
I’d see him. Even if he worked in one of the outlying side
streets and lived in the edge of town he’d come around the
square sooner or later because all the principal business
section was here.
The Big Bite — 44
People were coming out of a movie on the north side.
Some more were stooging around the front of a drugstore
on the corner beyond it. A few went past along the
sidewalks on the south side, mostly couples with the women
looking in the lighted store windows. I stepped back and
unsnapped one of the bags, groping in it for the binoculars.
Sliding them out of the case, hunkered down by the window
and adjusted the focus. Their faces leaped up at me. Pretty
girls, teenagers, housewives, men of all sizes and ages. I
saw no one who looked anything like Mrs. Cannon, but
there I were several men well over six feet. It wasn’t going
to be easy. The population of the town would probably be
between six and eight thousand, and this was Texas, where
they grew tall. There’d be a lot of men the size of the one I
was looking for. I could see a little of what Purvis had been
up against and why that big goon had been able to move in
on him like that. He couldn’t have remembered the faces
and descriptions of all the oversized men in a town this size.
I swept the glasses on around the square. On the west
side, partly cut off by the dark bulk of the courthouse, a sign
caught my eye. —NNON MOTORS. That would be it. I knew
that—in addition to other things—he had owned an
automobile agency. Most of the showroom was in view
behind its plate glass window. I readjusted the focus slightly
and it all leaped into hard, sharp detail. I could see the
white sidewalls of the tires on the display models, the door
opening off the showroom floor which presumably led into
an office, and the counter further to the right where the
parts department was. I could even see some gaskets
hanging on hooks behind the counter. This was luck. There
was always good chance he was somebody who worked
there, and if he were he had as much privacy now as a
goldfish.
There was no use looking any more tonight. I pulled the
blind down and switched on the light. It was fine so far. The
success of the whole thing depended on my finding him
before he knew I was here looking for him, and I was in a
good spot to do it. Success, hell, I thought, lighting a
cigarette. It was more than that. If I didn’t find out who he
was before he found out who I was, I’d wind up where
Purvis had. I had to spot him fast, or he’d be stalking me
from behind while I was still looking.
The Big Bite — 45
I put the glasses back in their case and opened the
recorder. I hadn’t been able to try it out thoroughly and test
it under operating conditions in the store because naturally
I couldn’t explain what I wanted to do with it. Finding a wall
outlet behind the writing desk, I plugged it in, turned it on,
and cranked up the gain. There was a long cord on the
microphone. Putting back the sheet and bedspread, I
shoved the mike under them and then threw my jacket over
it, covering it completely. It wouldn’t have to be that
muffled under actual operating conditions, but the room
would probably be larger. Going into the bathroom, I turned
on one of the taps in the wash basin. I turned it off. I
whistled a few bars of some popular tune, very softly.
Coming back into the room, I picked up the telephone.
When the lady bulldog at the desk answered, I said, “I’d
like to leave a call for six o’clock.”
“Six o’clock. Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said.
I took the change out of my pocket and placed it on the
glass top of the dresser. Through the open window floated
the sounds on the street below. A car went past, its tires
squealing a little as it made the turn at the corner. A horn
beeped, and a kid’s voice said, “Hi, beautiful.”
1. That was enough, I thought. I wondered how much I of it
I’d got. Rerolling the tape, I switched in on play back and
cut the gain way down. Water ran out of the tap and I could
even hear my shoes squeaking on the linoleum in the
bathroom. I whistled. The telephone knocked against its
cradle. It all came through. I let it run out to the end. “Hi,
beautiful,” the speaker said softly, just above the level of
the tube hiss and background noise. Perfect, I thought. I
coiled the power cord and mike cable and put them back in
the case and I locked it.
I undressed and turned out the light. It was very hot and
the sheet stuck to me with sweat. I got up and I turned on
the overhead fan, which helped a little. Fifty thousand.
Seventy-five. A hundred thousand. After taxes, I thought,
grinning coldly. The gasoline tax, driving up here. But the
figures were too big to have any actual meaning. You
couldn’t imagine that much. Sure, over a period of five
years, or ten, working for it. But not in an afternoon. Not by
The Big Bite — 46
just walking in and telling her, “I’ll take a hundred grand off
the top. Slip it in my I hip pocket, honey.” It was a dream. It
was too simple and easy to be real.
The hell it was. She had it, didn’t she? She had it and
plenty more, and where was the percentage in being rich in
Death Row? She’d be able to see that, without any trouble.
There was plenty for both of us. Hell, at a hundred thousand
I was the biggest bargain since free lunch and the nickel
beer.
* * *
I awoke before six and almost by the time my eyes, were
open excitement began to take hold of me. This was the day.
I could feel it. I rolled out of bed and stepped to the window.
Pulling the blind back a little, I peered out. The square lay
peaceful and almost deserted in the growing light. There
was no breeze, but the air was faintly cool and there was a
fresh early-morning-in-summer look about the scene that
reminded me of when I was a boy in other towns like this, of
riding my bike out in the dawn to go fishing for crappies
and goggle-eyes in some creek in the country where
everything would still be wet with the dew. Jesus, you’re a
lyrical bastard, I thought. Go ahead and remember the rest
of it, like how it was stepping over the old man where he’d
passed out in his own vomit in the middle of the bedroom
floor. And don’t forget that old sow he used to bring home
with him when he was crocked to the eyeballs. There was a
dewy sight in the dawn.
On the north side of the square, a few doors this side of
the movie house, an all night café was open. The only cars
in evidence in the whole square were parked in front of it.
While I was watching, two men wearing hard hats and
carrying lunch boxes came out, got in one of the cars, and
drove off. Pipeline workers, probably: Get in gear, I thought.
If I wanted any coffee or breakfast, I’d better get it now. I
took a quick shower. While I was rubbing down with the
towel, the telephone rang. It was the six-o’clock call, a
man’s voice. I dressed and went downstairs. The grayhaired
woman and Raymond were gone. The man behind
the desk was pleasant looking and middle-aged, with brown
eyes and steel-rimmed glasses. I dropped the key on the
desk.
The Big Bite — 47
“Good morning,” he said. “Are you staying over?”
“I may,” I said. “I’m headed for a fishing trip out at
Swanson Lake, but I might wait over and go tomorrow.
Don’t feel too well, for some reason. Something I ate last
night, I guess.”
“Stomach cramps?” he asked sympathetically.
I shook my head. “Just a little upset. Think I’ll try some
coffee and orange juice, and maybe a couple of aspirin, and
see what happens.”
I cut across the corner of the square. There were five or
six people in the restaurant, mostly hard hats and a truck
driver or two. A blonde with a Georgia accent brought me
some toast and a cup of coffee. I bought two packs of
cigarettes and came back to the hotel. The square was still
quiet except for the pigeons flapping around under the
eaves of the courthouse.
“Any better?” the brown-eyed man asked.
“Not much,” I replied. I grabbed a couple of the
paperbacked books off the stand and dropped fifty cents on
the desk as I picked up the key. “Think I’ll stay in the sack
for a while. Tell the maid just to pass up my room.”
“Sure thing,” he said. Then he added, “We can get you a
doctor, if you’d like.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said. “Thanks just the same.”
I went up to the room. Stripping down to my shorts
because it was going to be hot, I slid the binoculars out of
their case and put them on the carpet under the window. I
placed an ash tray beside them, and a pack of cigarettes
and some matches. I sat down on the floor and raised the
blind about three inches. By putting my face up close I
could see nearly all the square. There was practically no
chance anybody down there would notice me; this side of
the building would be shadow until noon. Who ever looked
up at the second floor anyway?
Hardly anything was moving yet. A bakery truck stopped
before the café on the north side and a man went in
carrying a tray of rolls. About halfway down the block on
the south side a man on a stepladder was cleaning the
windows of the J. C. Penney store. Yellow sunlight hit the
gables of the courthouse, inched down the slopes of the red
The Big Bite — 48
tile roof, and began to shatter in hot sprays of color against
the third floor windows. The cool freshness of early morning
was wilting a little. It was going to be a scorcher. I got up
and turned on the fan, and brought a towel from the
bathroom to mop the sweat from my face.
I lit a cigarette, smoked it out to the end, and fired up
another. Time went on. Sunlight was hitting the big plate
glass window of the Cannon Motors showroom on the west
side of the square now. A few cars were beginning to slide
into the rows of angle parking spaces. I studied the drivers
carefully as they got out and fished in their pockets for
nickels for the meter and if they were big men I put the
glasses on them. None of them resembled him at all. If they
were tall enough they were thin, or if heavily built they
were shorter or had sandy hair or long hair or damned little
hair of any kind.
I was growing uncomfortable. I shifted around, trying to
stretch my legs. The gimp one ached a little; I looked at the
scar tissue around the knee and cursed under my breath.
The meat-headed, punchdrunk bastard— Who? Cannon?
Mrs. Cannon? Or this big goon I thought I was looking for? I
must have gravel in I head. What did I think I was proving
with this Grade B movie routine? Just because some big guy
had killed Purvis I’d strung together a chain of improbable
coincidences and come up with a pearl necklace. What the
hell—the chances were he’d never heard of Mrs. Cannon.
He might be from Kokomo or Tucson, Arizona. He could be
anybody. Maybe people were standing in line to kill Purvis.
Maybe he’d won a contest, or something, to get first crack
at him. Send in six new subscriptions and kill Purvis at our
expense.
I grabbed suddenly for the glasses and trained them on
the doorway of the Cannon Motors showroom. A girl had
stopped there, her hand on the knob. It wasn’t Mrs. Cannon,
however. This was a blonde. She was wearing a blue dress
and white shoes, carrying a white handbag with long straps.
She seemed to be waiting for somebody to open the door for
her. I swung the glasses the way she was looking and
sucked in my breath sharply, but then let it ease out again
in disappointment. The man coming along the walk was the
right size, but his hair was longer and it was the color of
cotton. He unlocked the door and they went in. I watched
The Big Bite — 49
her trip across the floor of the showroom and go into the
office. She had nice legs.
Well, there'd be others working in the place. I turned the
glasses oh it every few minutes, in the meantime keeping a
sharp lookout over the nearer end of the square. Most of the
stores were open now. More people were on the walks, and
it was becoming more difficult to look them all over as they
moved along.
My sweeping gaze stopped abruptly, and I came to sharp
attention. What I had seen was a Chevrolet convertible
coming along the street on the south side of the square.
There was a man in it, a man who had wide shoulders and
was bareheaded. His hair was dark, or so it seemed in the
brief instant he was in view. I snatched at the glasses, but in
the time I was putting them up to my eyes he swung into an
alley and disappeared. I watched the mouth of the alley,
very alert now. No one came out. He could have been the
one, I thought. The convertible was significant. I waited
while minutes dragged by, but there was no sign of him.
Maybe there was parking back there for employees of the
stores along that side of the square. I studied the area. The
alley was in the middle of the block, with the J. C. Penney
store on one side of it and a shoe repair shop on the other.
Adjoining the Penney store on the east, toward me, was a
barbershop and then a small jewelry store. On the west side
of the alley, beyond the shoe place, was a sporting goods
store and next to that a dry-cleaners. I went up the line,
glancing at the doorways. They were all open now except
the dry-cleaning place and the sporting goods store. I
couldn’t see anybody inside, however, except some girls in
Penney’s. I swung back, watching the sidewalk. Then I
stopped suddenly. The door of the sporting goods store was
open now. Somebody must have come in from the rear. I
grabbed the glasses and focused on it.
There was no one visible, but I could see for several feet
back inside the doorway with every detail hard and clear.
There was a showcase on the right and I could even make
out the rows of bass plugs on a glass shelf inside it. The
glasses shook a little. I steadied them on the window sill
and looked again. Behind the showcase were some shelves
of stock, among which I could make out boxes that probably
The Big Bite — 50
contained reels and some flatter ones which looked like the
type flylines came in. Nobody came in sight.
I muttered impatiently and looked away. I couldn’t waste
all day on a wild guess; I had the rest of the square to cover.
I gave it a good going-over and saw no likely-looking
prospects. In a moment I was back staring at the front of
the sporting goods store again. Something on the glass
showcase caught my eye. It was rounded and black, and
partly cut off by the door frame. I looked at it again and
grunted softly to myself. It was the end of a telephone
handset.
Well, I could eliminate this bird and quit worrying about
him. Taking the glasses down, I looked at the sign above the
door. Tallant’s, it said. I stood up and reached for the
telephone book on the little stand in the corner. Looking up
the number, I lifted the telephone down and got into
position again with the glasses propped across the window
sill. The phone cord was just long enough to reach.
“Would you get me 2279?” I said, when the man at the
desk answered.
“Just a minute, please.”
I heard him dialing, and then the phone ringing at the
other end. I waited, keeping the glasses zeroed in on the
area above the showcase. He came into view and lifted the
handset. He was a tall man with tremendous shoulders, and
he had short-cropped dark hair. I exhaled softly.
“Hello. Tallant’s Sporting Goods,” he said.
It was an odd sensation, watching his lips move at the
same time I was listening to his voice on the receiver.
“Hope you weren’t busy,” I said. “I just wondered if you
had any reports on how the bass are hitting out at Swanson
Lake.”
“Been pretty good the last few days, I hear,” he replied.
“But mostly on live bait. Who’s calling?”
“You wouldn’t know me,” I said. “I just came up from
Beaumont. A friend of mine down there said I could
probably get a report on the lake at your place. George
Tallant, I think he said. That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Dan Tallant,” he corrected.
The Big Bite — 51
“Oh, sure. That’s right. So it’s been pretty good, huh?” I
was staring intently, very excited now. He was the one, all
right. I was almost positive of it, in spite of the fact he was
leaning over the showcase, foreshortened, as he talked, and
it was hard to fit him into the pose as I’d seen him before,
erect and facing the other way.
He said something else, just as the idea hit me. “By the
way,” I broke in, “you don’t happen to have a GBF torpedohead
flyline, do you? For a six-ounce rod—”
“No-o, I don’t, think so,” he replied. “I don’t carry much of
a selection, because nearly everybody around here uses
spinning gear. But just a minute; I’ll look—”
I saw him straighten and turn, looking at that section of
stock right in back of the phone where I thought I had seen
the flyline boxes. I got him dead to rights in the glasses, the
same picture exactly as before, the height and the
tremendous spread of shoulders, the small ears in close to
the head, the short, crisp black hair, and that impression he
was young and as strong as a fighting bull. There was no
doubt of it at all. I was talking to the man who had killed
Purvis.
The Big Bite — 52
6
When he had hung up he moved back to the rear of the
store again and I couldn’t see him any more. I lowered the
glasses, dropped the phone back on its cradle, and sat for a
moment staring at it. Right into the end zone on the first
play; this was better than I’d even dared hope for. I’d
proved I was right, located him, and identified him—all in
the first two or three hours. Improbable, was it? A dream?
Hell, it was turning into reality faster than I could keep up
with it.
All right, all right, I warned myself, don’t dislocate your
shoulder patting yourself on the back. There was plenty to
do yet, and the tricky and dangerous part was just
beginning. Mrs. Cannon was next. I stood up and went into
the bathroom to shave. Here I come, you brown-eyed Fort
Knox.
Nine-thirty was a little early to go calling on a woman,
especially unannounced, but that’s the way it had to be. If I
waited until later she might not be home, and if I phoned
first I never would see her. I was the last person in the
world she wanted to meet face to face. I grinned at my
reflection in the mirror, a little coldly. That was all right. So
maybe she wouldn’t like me. I was going to be a hell of a lot
more unpopular with her in about twenty-four hours if
things went off as scheduled.
The Big Bite — 53
I dressed in a fresh pair of gray-slacks and a subdued
sports shirt, combed my hair, and took a last gander at
myself in the mirror. I’d do. I looked as scrubbed and
wholesome as a freshly-laundered moose, and about half as
subtle. She’d never suspect me of anything.
I looked up her address in the telephone book. Threetwenty-
four Cherrywood Drive, it said. Putting the
binoculars in the bag with the gun, I locked it, and then
checked the recorder to be sure its case was locked too. I
went downstairs, did the how-you-feeling-now-much-betterthanks
routine with the solicitous type at the desk, and on
out the rear door to the car. Coming out of the alley, I
turned north, avoiding the square. At the first filling station
I pulled in and gassed up. The attendant told me how to find
Cherrywood Drive.
It was southwest of the square, near the crest of a sloping
hill overlooking the town. Near the bottom the bungalows
had a housing-development look about them, but further up
they were bigger, on large, landscaped lots. Cherrywood
Drive was only four blocks long and there were just three
houses in the last block, two. of them on the left, or
downhill side. I slowed, looking at the numbers. The Cannon
place would be the second one on the left, the last house on
the street. It was near the corner where Cherrywood
terminated in an intersecting street going downhill. Beyond
the intersecting street was a wooded area, still
undeveloped. I liked the whole layout but I didn’t want to
take too much time now in looking it over. If I goofed
around out here until she got a look at me out the window
she probably wouldn’t be “in” when I rang the buzzer.
The other two houses were white Colonial types with
columns and wide lawns and driveways. Directly across
from the Cannon house was a vacant lot, grown up with
pines, however, rather than weeds. I pulled the old Chevy to
the curb on that side and walked across the street. The
Cannon house was newer, a long, low ranch style built of
light-colored brick with a sweeping, low-angled white roof
covered with broken quartz. It looked very western and a
little out of place among all these pines. It sat back from the
street in a large expanse of well-tended lawn, but there was
no circular drive. A flagstone walk bordered with some kind
of low shrubs led to the front door, and beyond it a wide
The Big Bite — 54
concrete driveway went straight back to the two-car garage
adjoining the house on the far end. Both doors of the garage
were closed. That should mean she was home.
It was hot now and I could feel perspiration beginning to
break out on my face. I went quickly up the walk. A colored
man in a straw hat was digging in the flower bed under the
big picture window in front. His shirt was plastered to his
back with sweat. Drapes were drawn across the window and
I couldn’t see in. Remember, I told myself, you’ve never
seen her before in your life. Sell her on it.
I rang the bell. The gardener straightened and brushed
his wet face with a hand, looking up at me. “You know if
Mrs. Cannon’s home?” I asked.
“Yassuh, I think so,” he said. He went back to his work.
I’d just started to reach for the bell again when the door
opened. A young colored girl looked out at me indifferently.
She was chewing gum and held a broom in her left hand.
“Is Mrs. Cannon in?” I asked.
“I’ll find out,” she said. “Who I say it is?”
“Mr. Warren,” I said, mumbling a little.
“Just a minute.”
She disappeared, leaving the door ajar. It opened into a
small entry hall. There was a door at the left of that, going
into the living-room apparently, but I couldn’t see much of
it. I waited. Maybe I shouldn’t have said Warren, I thought.
It might still sound too much like Harlan. O’Toole or
Schutzbank or something would have done better. But still
it had to be within shooting distance; I didn’t want her to
get the idea I was aware I might have to pitch her a phony
name to get in. That would ruin it all. Oh, hell, I thought;
it’s been five months and she doesn’t know I’m within two
thousand miles.
The girl came back. Mrs. Cannon was in. I could wait in
the parlor. I followed her in through the entry hall and stood
in the living-room. “She’ll be heah in a minute,” she said,
and went on out through a door at the right rear, which
seemed to lead into the dining-room. As soon as she was
gone, I looked swiftly around, trying to get as good a picture
of the layout as I could before Mrs. Cannon got here.
The Big Bite — 55
Apparently there was no dog. That had been worrying me,
but I didn’t see any signs of one. Certainly there wasn’t one
in the house, or he’d have been around to investigate by this
time, and I couldn’t see any kennel in the patio behind the
house. There was another plate glass window at the rear of
the living-room, fitted with a gauzy drape which was closed
now but was fairly transparent with the bright sunlight
behind it, The patio was enclosed with a white-painted
cinder block wall about four feet high. Below it down the
hillside was another wooded vacant lot. Approaching the
house from the rear would be a cinch. Getting in, however,
was going to be another matter.
I’d noticed something when I first stepped into the entry
hall, but it hadn’t actually registered until now. The house
was air-conditioned. I could feel the coolness penetrating
my sweaty shirt. It was fine after the sticky heat outside,
but there was another angle to it I didn’t like at all. The
doors and windows would be tightly closed all the time it
was turned on, so it wasn’t going to be merely a matter of
unlatching a screen. It wasn’t good. I glanced swiftly
around, studying the room.
It was a long one. At the far end was a raised fireplace
with a copper hood. To the left of it was an open doorway
which apparently led into a study or library because I could
see rows of books along the wall and the front end of a
mounted sailfish. At the right was the hallway which went
on through to the rest of the house. Some chairs and a small
sectional sofa were scattered about that end, before the
fireplace, but the focal point of the room was nearer the
center where a long custom-built sofa was backed up
against the drapes of the front window. A coffee table and
three large chairs faced it in a rough semicircle, and it was
probable this was the part of the room generally used when
only a few people were present because it faced the large
rear window overlooking the patio. It looked good to me. At
each end of the sofa there was a table with a big, redshaded
lamp on it. The lamp cords disappeared behind the
sofa. I made a mental note I’d probably need a three-way
outlet plug. There was a whispering sound like that of
slippers on carpet. I turned just as Mrs. Cannon came into
the room from the hallway.
The Big Bite — 56
When she saw me, she stopped. Her eyes widened a little,
and I knew she recognized me. I didn’t care now, because I
was in, and I was too busy anyway trying to keep from
staring at her to worry about it.
Striking, Purvis had said. She was, but he hadn’t
scratched the surface.
The other time had been just a flashing glimpse at dusk,
and that photograph hadn’t amounted to much more than
an inventory. She was wearing bullfighter’s pants and a
white shirt with the sleeves rolled up; the blue-black hair
was cut rather short and it swirled carelessly about a
slender oval face the color of honey or good pale vermouth.
She was a construction job from the ground up without
being overdone about it anywhere—just medium height and
rather slim and with only a touch of that overblown
calendar-girl effect above the sucked-in waist—but if you
had to look twice to be sure that wasn’t Manolete inside
those pants you were in bad shape and ought to see an
optometrist or psychiatrist before you got any worse. The
pants themselves were black and very smooth, and what
they did to her thighs—or vice versa—should happen more
often. Below them her legs were bare and honey-colored
and she wore bullfighter’s slippers. Break it up, I thought;
in another two seconds you won’t know whether to say hello
or charge.
It was her eyes, however, that could throw the match in
the gasoline. They were large and very lovely, fringed with
long dark lashes, and they were brown—not soft or fawnlike,
but self-possessed and cool with a hint of the devil in
them, a devil not too well tied up and only half asleep. You
had an impression that if she ever really turned them on you
with that sidelong come-hither out of the corners and from
under the lashes she could roll your shirt up your back like
a window-blind. Mrs. Cannon was a large order of girl; she
may have killed her husband, but I was willing to bet he’d
never been bored when he was alive.
She recognized me; she was off guard for just an instant
and I saw the sudden wariness in her eyes. Then she
recovered and murmured politely, “Good morning, Mr.—ah
—”
“Harlan,” I said. “John Harlan.”
The Big Bite — 57
“Oh,” she said. “I thought Geraldine said a Mr. Warren. I
couldn’t imagine— Won’t you sit down, Mr. Harlan?”
She flowed forward like warm honey poured out of a jug
and took one of the big chairs facing the sofa. I remained
standing until she was seated and then sat down on the
sofa. She leaned forward to take a cigarette from the box on
the coffee table. I sprang up again to light it for her. She
looked up at me over the flame of the match, smiling a little,
and said, “Thank you.”
I lit one for myself and sat down again. “I want to
apologize for coming so early in the morning,” I said, “but
I’m on my way out to the lake to go fishing and didn’t want
to miss you.”
“That’s quite all right,” she replied smoothly. “I’ve been
up for hours.”
I had to hand it to her; she was as cool as they come. I
knew she was raging inside at that maid for not getting my
name straight and at the same time she was probably going
crazy trying to figure out—now that I had got in—whether I
recognized her as the-woman I’d seen out there at the lake,
but none of it showed on her face.
“You know, I expected somebody much older,” I said. “I
don’t know where I got the impression, but I thought you’d
be thirty or thirty-five.” It was an old gag, of course, and
she’d recognize it as such, but still it was the truth in a way.
Purvis’d said she was thirty, but she didn’t look it.
She gave me a faint smile and nodded. “You’re very
flattering, Mr. Harlan,” she murmured. “And so early in the
morning, too.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could see that amused devil
looking out of her eyes for just a second. It was beginning to
appear to her that I didn’t know I’d ever seen her before,
and the tension was easing: Two-hundred-and-thirty pounds
of ham-handed athlete trying to be a smoothie probably
tickled her, too. She’d heard all the compliments, by
experts; and with those eyes, she’d probably been using
men for throw-rugs since she was three. Well, that was all
right. I’d be something new for her; I’d be the first one that
ever cost her a hundred thousand dollars. She’d probably
sleep with a lock of my hair under her pillow.
The Big Bite — 58
I pitched my voice down a little and looked at my hands.
“I—uh—” I said. Then I glanced up at her, ill at ease and
awkward, but sincere as hell, “There isn’t anything, really,
that I can say, is there?” I asked.
“I don’t think there’s anything that has to be said,” she
replied quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Well—it isn’t a question of blame,” I said haltingly, “It’s
just that—well, there was a wreck, and I was involved in it. I
wanted to come and see you after I got out of the hospital,
but didn’t know what there was I could say if I did come. I
knew how badly you were torn up about it, too, and realized
you didn’t want to see me and be reminded of it—”
That ought to get her off the hook, I thought, so she could
relax. I was just a big simple muscle-head who didn’t have
the faintest idea why she’d avoided me. There was nothing
for her to be afraid of any more. All I had to do now was
ease her mind as to why I’d come back here, and I’d be in.
It was as if we were working off the same script. “It’s
quite all right,” she said. “I’m glad you came. And I’m very
sorry I didn’t come to see you in the hospital, but it’s nice to
know that you understood. However, I’ll admit I was a little
surprised at seeing you now. I didn’t know you were back in
this part of the country.”
“I came back to finish that fishing trip,” I explained.
“Going to work on a new job in September. I won’t get a
vacation for a year, so I thought I’d better do my fishing
now while I could.”
The big eyes became very grave and sympathetic. This
baby was good. “I was so very sorry to read that you had
been—I mean, that you weren’t going to play any more. Do
you think the accident had anything to do with it?”
I shrugged. No way to tell, actually. It was just one of
those things.”
She ran the rheostats up a little and brushed my face with
a lingering glance that would melt butter at fifteen-feet. “I
hated to hear it,” she said simply.
Not half as much as you’re going to hate it this time
tomorrow, baby, I thought. I took my eyes away from her
face. Looking at her was too damned distracting, and I still
had plenty to do. Part of what I’d come for had been
The Big Bite — 59
accomplished but the big item still remained. How was I
going to get in? The front door was out of the question; that
was probably locked all the time. How about windows?
They’d all be closed because of the air-conditioning. But
maybe they wouldn’t be latched. There weren’t any
windows in the living-room, however, except the big plate
glass ones, and of course they didn’t open at all. I couldn’t
think of any excuse to get into another part of the house to
look for some. Maybe I’d been too optimistic.
Then I saw two windows, and knew I was worse off than
ever. Looking out through that filmy drape, I could see a
little of the two wings of the house that formed the sides of
the U plan. On both sides there were windows, smaller
ones, looking out over the patio. They were the casement
type. I’d never tried it, but I knew they couldn’t be opened
from outside except by stripping and wrecking the gear and
crank mechanism that operated them. It was a worm type
gear, which can be driven from only one end. They’d all be
the same. Windows were out; it had to be a door.
Suddenly I was conscious she was saying something. I
“Oh?” I asked. “I beg your pardon?”
She smiled. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure,” I said. “Uh-thanks.”
“Geraldine!” she called.
There was no answer. She looked at me and lifted her
shoulders with a graceful shrugging motion, spreading her
hands. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
“Surely,” I said. I stood up. She went out toward the
dining-room. I watched the rear of those bullfighter pants
out of sight, and then turned, and while I was still turning
and saying, “Holy hell!” very softly under my breath I saw
the answer to the thing I was looking for. It was a glass
door opening onto the patio. I’d been looking at it all the
time but hadn’t noticed because it was behind that semitransparent
drape. I was just to the left of the end of the big
picture window and I’d thought it was a part of it. The drape
had been made wide enough to cover the door in addition to
the window when it was closed, apparently so as to give an
unbroken line clear across that side of the room.
I could hear her talking to Esmerelda or whatever her
name was out in the kitchen. I stepped swiftly across to the
The Big Bite — 60
door and pulled back the end of the drape. Opening it, I
tried the knob from the outside. It didn’t turn; the night
latch was on. Looking quickly around to be sure I was still
alone, I reversed the push-button plungers in the edge of
the door to unlatch it, closed it softly, and let the drape fall
back in position. The door apparently wasn’t used much, so
the chances were she didn’t bother to check it every night.
I walked back and sat down. In a moment she came in
from the dining-room with two cups of coffee and some
cream and sugar on a tray. I did some more of the earnest
young man about how sorry I was for the accident, even if it
wasn’t my fault, and while I talked I tried to keep my eyes
off her long enough to get the exact layout of that patio. She
regretted some more that I was washed up in football. I
shoved the silken weight of her off the edge of my mind and
told her how brave she was. She told me I was nice and that
it was considerate of me to call this way, and I knew she
was just waiting for me to get the hell out of here so she
could call Tallant. They were going to have one hot
conference about this, but I thought I had her fooled. l was
just a goof who’d come back to go fishing. I wondered if the
maid slept in, and decided she probably didn’t. They’d had
to stay under cover all this time, so Tallant was probably
coming here late at night. They were too cagey to be seen
together for probably another six months, even with Purvis
out of the way. So that’s the way it was. She’d be waiting
for him—waiting— Damn it, I thought. Cut it out, and attend
to business. Get that look off your pan; don’t think she
won’t recognize it—she’s been seeing it since she was
twelve. Be sorry about something.
About what?
Hell, anything.

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Adventures of Huckleberry Finn