“Listen, Frankie,” she said hurriedly. “Pearl just called
from town, and he’s on his way out here now. He said he
tried to get you, but you didn’t answer—”
“He hung up before I could get to the phone,” Frankie
grumbled. “What is it?”
I don’t know, except something’s gone wrong. All he said
was he was leaving right then and for me to call you and
keep calling till I got you, if I had to try every place in town.
Don’t tell anybody, not even your wife, but just get out here
as fast as you can.”
“I’ll be right there,” Frankie said. He hung up.
I replaced the instrument and looked at my watch. It was
12:47. We were cutting it dangerously fine. She’d said Pearl
sometimes came home as early as one. It would take Frankie
a couple of minutes to dress, and then Calhoun would wait
two or three more. It was very still in the room. I was hot in
the flannel jacket. Sweat ran down my face. My hands were
so stiff now I could hardly close them.
“How long have you been living with Pearl?” I asked
Trudy.
“Three or four months,” she said defiantly. Then she
started to whine again. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with
anything. I came here from Tampa.”
“When did T.J. show up?”
“About the same time. He was in a cuttin’ scrape up in
Georgia.”
They were small change, I thought. I had to have the three
big ones, and some kind of proof, and even then it might do
me no good at all.
“What’s in the safe?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied sullenly.
“What’s in the safe?” I repeated harshly, taking a step
towards her.
“Honest to God.” She began to whine again. “He never
lets nobody see in it. Or watch him open it. That Miz
Talk of The Town— 189
Redfield offered me three hundred dollars if I could steal the
combination—” She stopped abruptly.
“Why?” I asked. “What did she want with it?”
She retreated into sullen stupidity. “I don’t know. But
Pearl carries it in his head. Nobody’ll ever know it but him.”
I looked at my watch again. It was 12:55. Calhoun should
be talking to Mrs. Crossman now. And Frankie should be
here any moment. “When Mrs. Crossman calls,” I told Trudy,
“tell her Frankie’s not here and Pearl’s not here. Nothing
else. Got it?”
She nodded. We went on waiting in hot, bright silence.
The phone rang. I nodded, and she picked it up. I stood
beside her with my ear close to the edge of the receiver.
“This is Bessie Crossman,” a woman’s voice said. “Is
Frankie there, Trudy?”
“No,” Trudy replied. “He hasn’t been here.”
“You don’t know where Pearl is?” I shook my head. She
replied no.
“I’m worried. He got a phone call and rushed off
somewhere, and then Calhoun come looking for him just a
few minutes later.”
It was beginning to work. I motioned for Trudy to hang up.
Almost at the same instant Georgia Langston said quietly
at the side window, “Car turning in, Bill.”
“Right,” I said. “Stay out of sight. Don’t come in unless I
call you.”
I strode to the corner beside the door, where I could
watch Trudy and was out of sight from the windows. “Stay
right where you are,” I ordered. “And don’t say a word.”
The car came on and stopped under the tree near the
corner of the front porch. Hurrying footsteps sounded in the
hall, and Frankie came in. “Hey, Trudy, hasn’t Pearl got
here?”
I put a hand in his back and pushed. “You’re the first,
Frankie. Come on in.”
He whirled, and the dark and bony face was mean as he
caught sight of me. The lip was swollen where I’d hit him in
the bar. He was wearing only khaki trousers and shirt, and I
could see no place he could be carrying a gun, but I whirled
Talk of The Town— 190
him around against the wall and shook him down anyway.
He had nothing except a knife. I threw it under the bed at
the back of the room and returned the revolver to my
pocket.
He looked from me to Trudy, and back again. “What the
hell’s all this? Where’s Pearl?”
“He’ll be here, Frankie,” I told him. “And Cynthia, I hope.
Too bad Strader can’t come. You could have a reunion.”
Fear showed on his face for an instant. He whirled on
Trudy. “Why, you little slut!”
She shrilled at him, “He made me call you!”
“Who killed Langston?” I asked. “All of you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who hit the truck driver too hard?”
“You must be nuts.”
“It makes no difference,” I said. “You know that. All of you
take the rap, regardless of who hit him.”
I was wasting time with Frankie. He had realized by now
that Trudy had told me nothing. “Turn around,” I said.
“Against that wall.”
He glared, about ready to jump me. I was too tired to want
to fight him. I took the sap from my pocket and swung it in
my hand. “Turn around, Frankie.” He turned. I tied his
hands with another strip of the sheet and stuck a wad of it in
his mouth and made it fast. I shoved him onto the sofa, and
turned to the girl.
“Call the Silver King and ask for Pearl. Here’s what you
say.” I told her carefully, and then repeated it. “You got it?”
She began to cry. “He’ll kill me.”
“He won’t be able to. Call him.” She still hesitated, deathly
afraid of him. “Call him!” I said harshly. My nerves were
about ready to snap.
She picked up the phone and dialed. “Exactly the way I
told you,” I warned.
I held my car close to the receiver. We were in luck. I
heard the bartender say, “Yeah. I think he’s still here. Just a
minute.”
Talk of The Town— 191
He must have put the receiver on the bar directly in front
of somebody. Above the jukebox and the ground-swell of
bar-room conversation I heard a man say, “I’m glad I’m not
in the sum-bitch’s shoes when Redfield catches him!”
“Hello.” It was Talley’s mush-mouth drawl. I nodded to
her.
“Pearl!” she cried out. I think something’s wrong. Miz
Crossman phoned out here a few minutes ago—”
“What’d she want?”
“She’s tryin” to find Frankie. She said he got a phone call
from somebody about half an hour ago and left the house in
a big hurry and didn’t say where he was goin’. And just after
he left, Calhoun came there lookin’ for him She don’t know
what for, but Calhoun acted like it was real serious.”
“Oh, Frankie’s jest been in another fight, or somethin’.”
“No! That ain’t all. Frankie called too. He jest this minute
hung up. I don’t know where he was, but he said he was
gettin’ out of town. He was so excited I couldn’t make out
everything he said, but it was something about all hell was
going to bust loose. He said he found out that man is a
private detective workin’ for an insurance company. I’m not
sure what he meant, but I’m scared, Pearl. T. J.’s scared.
We’re goin’ to get out of here—”
“You stay right where you are,” he said coldly. “That’s the
worst thing you can do—” He apparently realized that he
was being listened to by people in the bar, for he went on
easily. “Shucks, it ain’t nothin’. You jest sit tight. I’ll be
along.”
He hung up.
I dropped the receiver back on its cradle, feeling myself
tighten up. We had seven or eight minutes at most. “All
right, Trudy. Stand up and turn around.”
“Damn you!” she lashed out. “He’ll kill me. You don’t know
him.”
“Shut up!” I told her. “I’m trying to get you out of sight
before he gets here.”
She put her hands behind her willingly then. I began tying
them. “Georgia!” I called out. She came in quickly.
“What’s Frankie’s car? That panel truck?”
Talk of The Town— 192
”Yes,” she said. Then she gave a short laugh that ended in
a little choking cry, and put a hand against the doorframe to
steady herself. She brushed the other across her face. The
strain was beginning to get her.
“Take it easy,” I said.
“I’m all right.” She took a deep breath. “It was just the
truck. The same one that backed into you—when was it?
How many years ago?”
I managed to grin at her. “We were young then.” Then I
jerked my head towards Frankie. “See if the keys are in his
pocket. If he tries to kick you, brain him with something.”
“The keys are in the switch,” she replied. “I’ve already
checked.”
“Good girl.” I finished off Trudy and hustled Frankie to his
feet. “Bring the rest of those strips,” I said, and shoved them
ahead of me, holding them by the arms. We went out on the
porch. After being in the light, I couldn’t see at all for a
moment or two. Frankie stumbled, stepping off the porch,
and almost fell. I caught him. Georgia led the way to the
truck. I opened the doors in back and shoved them in. She
found the switch and turned on the light. I hurriedly tied
their ankles. Frankie lay on his side, the black, mean eyes
staring at my face. I was suddenly sick of all of them, sick to
the bottom of my heart of the whole tough, cheap, crooked
lot. Be a police officer and look at that all your life?
“Watch the road,” I warned. “He’ll be here any minute.”
“Nothing yet,” she said.
I slammed the rear doors and we got in and drove down
behind the barn. I cut the lights and the engine, and sighed,
beat-up and tired and hurting all over. I put out a hand to
touch her, and she took it and held it between both of hers,
in her lap.
“What are our chances?” she asked calmly.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “They pulled off a robbery that
night and killed a man up in Georgia. Bringing the stuff into
another State makes it a Federal case. That, and the felony
murder, is what they’ve been so jittery about.”
“Can we prove it?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I’m trying to make them lose their
heads. I couldn’t get anything out of Frankie, but we’ve still
Talk of The Town— 193
got Pearl and Mrs. Redfield to go.” I broke off wearily,
aware that if Cynthia Redfield sat tight and didn’t panic we
had no chance. We had to get her or it was nothing.
“But Kendall?” she asked. “Where was there any
connection with him?”
“One of the places they robbed was a jewelry store,” I
said. “They must have had some of the stuff there in the
house that morning, and he saw it. Remember, it wasn’t just
robbery; they knew they’d killed a man. A felony murder is
the same as first degree.”
“But why would he go there?” she insisted.
I don’t know,” I said.
Well, I thought defiantly, I don’t really. It’s just a guess.
And maybe I was still wrong about the whole thing. There
was the time element. Langston was apparently killed at a
few minutes past four in the morning. Weaverton was nearly
a hundred miles. If they’d entered the first place shortly
after twelve, when the lights went out and the police
converged on the fire, they still had only four hours. They
might have been able to get away with the safes and drive
back in that length of time, but they couldn’t have opened
them. That would take hours. And disposing of them in a
river somewhere would take more time. So what had
Langston seen?
Well, they’d cleaned out a jewelry store, and everything
wasn’t kept in a safe at night. There’d have been watches,
and silver. . . .
“I hear a car coming,” she said.
Headlights flashed briefly across the trees beside the
barn, and died. A car door slammed. Pearl was here.
Talk of The Town— 194
17
“Stay here,” I whispered.
I eased out of the truck and around the corner of the barn.
It was too dark to see him, but I heard his footsteps as he
hurried across the front porch. He wouldn’t waste any time
looking for the others. The car’s being gone would be
evidence enough they’d run out. I hurried across the yard
and reached a position by the side window as he came into
the room. I couldn’t see him; he was off to my left
somewhere. Then I heard the sound and recognized it, and
excitement ran along my nerves. It was the faint, metallic
rattle of the knob of the safe as he spun it through the
combination.
He could be after money so he could run; or my hunch
might be right and there was something in it he wanted to
get rid of and hide somewhere else. I waited tensely; I had
to be sure it was open before I went in. Then the telephone
rang. It rang again. He paid no attention to it. I heard the
click of the handle as he swung open the door of the safe.
Slipping round in front, I eased the screen door open, and
stepped into the hall. The telephone shrilled once more in
the silence, covering any sound I might have made.
He was kneeling before the opened safe with his back to
me, wearing another of those garish shirts, the cowboy hat
pushed onto the back of his head. On the floor beside him
Talk of The Town— 195
was one of the metal drawers from the safe. It held two
chamois bags, one of them very small.
“Turn around, Pearl,” I said. “And get away from the front
of that safe.”
He whirled and stood up. After the first gasp of surprise,
there was no confusion or fear in his face. The blue eyes
were calculating and more than a little cold as they looked
at me and then moved slightly, estimating the distance to
the desk drawer.
“There’s no gun in it,” I said. I crossed over in front of
him. The telephone started to ring once more, but cut off in
the middle of it. Whoever it was had hung up. Silence
seemed to roar in my ears. I thought of the shotgun going
off in that loft, and the obscene foaming of acid, and
whispered filth on a telephone. For an instant I wanted to
get my hands on him now that we were alone and beat him
into something unrecognizable, but I pushed it wearily
aside. What good would it do? What good had it done last
time?
I jerked my head. “Move over. Away from that safe.”
He took a step to his right, towards the jukebox, the chinablue
eyes watching me carefully. He knew I had a gun. I
lifted the two chamois bags to the desk and worked the
drawstrings loose. One of them was filled with engagement
rings in all sizes of stones, and the smaller one held perhaps
a child’s handful of unset diamonds. I didn’t know whether
they were expensive stones or not. Another drawer in the
desk held several dozen men’s and women’s wrist-watches,
wrapped in tissue paper. Apparently he had destroyed the
gift cases as being too bulky to store. The last compartment
I slid open was stacked with bundles of currency sorted by
denomination and held together with rubber bands. Several
thousand dollars, I guessed. You wondered how many times
he’d counted it.
I stood up. He regarded me with a conspiratorial, but
simple-minded expression on the fat baby face. “You know, I
bet you an’ me could work out a dicker.”
“Yes?” I asked. This should be interesting to hear.
“Why, shore. Them po-lice has got you treed like a coon in
a holler snag. You just ain’t goin’ to get out of here, and
when they catch you, that Redfield’s goin’ to pistol-whup
Talk of The Town— 196
you to death. But suppose I was to take you out in my
truck?” There was a pause, precisely timed, and then he
added, “Even give you a whole pocketful of that money to
take along.”
“Why?” I asked.
This was the second level, I thought—Talley the trader. It
lay somewhere between the low-comedy yokel with a face
like a lewd baby, and the real Talley, the coldblooded and
deadly hoodlum. Pearl was an apt name for him; pearls were
built up in layers. Or maybe there wasn’t any actual Talley
at all; if you stripped off all the succeeding layers, at the
bottom there wouldn’t be anything but an elemental force, a
sort of disembodied and symbolic act of devouring. No
wonder he was good at mimicry and spoke in dialects; he
wasn’t sure who he was himself.
He couldn’t understand me. “Don’t you want to get away?”
“No,” I said. I doubt there’s any way I can explain it to
you, but all I want is to see you in jail.”
“Shucks. Ain’t no hard feelin’s.”
I see. Trying to drive a woman insane or wreck her health
is just routine business strategy?”
“Oh, I didn’t reckon she’d go real nutty or anything. I jest
figured if she got a bellyful of the place she’d sell out cheap.
You know how it is, you gotta be on your toes in real estate.”
“What about trying to kill me with a shotgun?”
He grinned slyly. “Hell, you can’t prove nobody tried to kill
you. You’re still alive.”
I realized I was up against unanswerable logic. There was
no harm done, because he’d missed. Why be churlish about
it?
“Which one of you killed Langston?” I asked.
“Why, I don’t know nothin’ about that,” he said innocently.
“Look, let’s talk over this dicker a little more.”
“Knock it off, Pearl,” I said. “I know what you people did
that night, and the proof’s right there in front of you. I’ve
already got Frankie. All I’ve got to do now is call the F.B.I.
They’ll be glad to get their hands on you.”
He was looking at something over the door. I whirled.
Cynthia Redfield was standing just inside it. She was
Talk of The Town— 197
wearing a dark blue dress and sandals, and was carrying a
flat bag in her left hand and holding a short-barreled .38 in
the other. It was a corny pose, and might have been
ridiculous if it had been anybody else, but wasn’t ridiculous
on her at all. I knew she was deadly enough to mean it.
She came on into the room. “Turn around, Mr. Chatham,”
she ordered. I turned, raging at myself, and scared. I heard
her walk up until she was about three feet behind me, and
then she said, “Now, take off your jacket and toss it over
there on that sofa.”
She couldn’t miss. I did as she said. “Now, get over there
and stand by Pearl.” I walked over and stood by the safe,
facing her.
She stared coolly at Pearl, and said, “I thought you might
walk right into it, so I parked up by the road. I tried to head
you off in town, but they said you’d just got a phone call and
left. Then I tried to get Frankie, and found out he’d also
disappeared. Didn’t it occur to any of you that Chatham was
doing it, trying to panic you?”
I glanced sideways at Pearl and saw he was watching her
nervously. For some reason he didn’t appear as happy as he
should be at this change in the picture. “Well, it was Trudy
that called—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said crisply. I don’t have much
time.” She stopped to give him a taunting smile, and went
on, I see you have the safe open. That’s nice, isn’t it? We can
have an accounting now, after all these months.”
Pearl said nothing, and it began to dawn on me at last that
I wasn’t the only one being threatened by that gun.
“Come on, Pearl,” she taunted. “Tell me again how much
was in those safes when you and Frankie opened them.
Remember, all the paper money in one burned up when the
torch set it on fire. And the other had only about two
thousand dollars’ worth of cheap junk in it. Remember,
Pearl?”
He swallowed uneasily.
She walked to the desk, motioning for us to move back.
Setting her handbag on it, she poked her finger into the
openings of the two chamois bags. A few engagement rings
spilled out on the desk.
Talk of The Town— 198
“You got to listen—” Pearl began.
She cut him off coldly. “How did you get Frankie to lie
about it, and cheat him out of his share at the same time?
More blackmail, Pearl?”
“Listen, you got it all wrong,” he explained earnestly. I had
to keep it so none of it wouldn’t git sold till it was safe. I was
goin’ to tell you. Honest. You don’t reckon I’d cheat my own
kin—?”
“Shut up, you filthy pig!” she lashed at him. “In the end,
you got it all, didn’t you. You always do. By lying, and
blackmail, and extortion. You couldn’t leave us alone, could
you? All we wanted to do was break into just one of those
stores to get enough money to go away together, but you
had to force your way into it and make a production of it.
Kill a man and burn up part of a town so you could carry off
the safes. You’re never satisfied, are you? You couldn’t even
leave that woman alone so she’d sell out and go away so the
thing would quiet down and be forgotten. Not you, you dirty
pig! You had to go to work on her so you could buy the place
for nothing. So you made her too stubborn to sell, and you
didn’t even have sense enough to leave this man alone so
he’d stay out of it. And then you let him make a fool of you.
Well, I can still get out, Pearl, and I’m going to. And I’m
going to take everything that’s in that safe. I’d have killed
you long ago if I could have thought of a way to get it open.”
She could get away with it, if she got back home before
she was missed. With both of us dead and the jewelry gone
there’d be no evidence of any kind and nothing to point to
her. Then I remembered Georgia Langston. Cynthia
apparently didn’t know she was here. She’d be safe if she
stayed out of sight.
Almost at the same instant I thought I heard a faint sound
like the scrape of a shoe in the hall, and involuntarily looked
towards the door. A slender hand had come around the edge
of the frame, groping for the light switch just inside. But
Pearl was facing that way too. He stared, too obviously, and
Cynthia Redfield started to turn. Then the exploring fingers
touched the switch and the lights went off.
She pulled the trigger through sheer reflex, but I was
already diving towards the floor. Pearl hit me and we
crashed down together. I kicked him off me and rolled,
Talk of The Town— 199
aiming for the spot where Cynthia Redfield had been
standing. I missed her and swung my arms. One hand
brushed the cloth of her skirt. The gun crashed again. I
lunged at her and missed completely. Then Pearl slammed
into me. We fell against a wall and he had me pinned under
him. I heard a collision in the hallway, somebody cried out,
and the screen door slammed. She was gone; I’d never catch
her out there in the night.
Pearl had a knee in my chest and was swinging like a
madman. A fist caught me just above the ear and rocked my
head back against the wall. He had the range now and hit
me again. One arm was pinned under me and I couldn’t get
any weight behind the other when I landed on him. A fist
crashed against the side of my jaw. It rocked me, and I
realized that one or two more like it would knock me out. I
put everything into one last heave, and came up, toppling
him into the darkness beside me. We rolled, locked together
and straining, and hit the legs of the flimsy card table. It
collapsed, dumping magazines and books on us. I thought I
heard a car somewhere, but it was impossible to be sure
above the hoarse sound of our breathing.
We threshed through the wreckage of the card table and
the slithering and unstable carpeting of magazines. I found
his throat with my left hand and swung with the right. Pain
went up my arm, but he grunted. I swung it again and felt
him go limp. I pushed myself away and collapsed, too weak
to get up. Somewhere behind me a match flared, and then
the lights came on. I pushed myself to a sitting position and
turned. Kelly Redfield was standing just inside the door.
He was a good ten feet away. There was nothing I could
do but sit and stare at him. His face was pale and intensely
still, and the eyes deadly. There was no gun in his hand, but
the short khaki jacket was open in front and I could see one
in the shoulder holster under his left arm. He said nothing.
There was no sound in the room except that of my
breathing. His right hand came up and pulled the gun away
from the spring clip that held it.
“All right, Chatham,” he said. His voice was so tight there
was no expression in it whatever.
Then I saw his eyes flick away from my face for the first
time as they glanced towards the open safe and the desk
Talk of The Town— 200
beside it. Something held them. I turned involuntarily and
looked. On the desk one of the chamois bags was still pulled
open and light glittered on the stones in the rings. And
beside it was the maroon leather of Cynthia Redfield’s
handbag.
He pulled his eyes away from it and tried to do it anyway.
He raised the gun and cocked it. Sweat stood out on his face
like beads of glycerin. Then the muzzle wavered, and he let
his arm fall to his side. He was motionless for what seemed
like a long time, and at last he raised the gun and put it back
in the holster. He walked over to the desk and stood with his
back to me as he picked up the phone.
I let my head drop on my forearms, braced across my
knees, and closed my eyes. I was shaking all over, and limp.
I heard him dialing. “Redfield,” he said. “Call off the
search for Chatham. But send somebody to pick up Frankie
Crossman—”
“Frankie’s out here,” I said without looking up.
He gave no indication he had heard me, other than to
change his orders. “Send Mitchell out here. Pearl Talley’s
place. To pick up Frankie Crossman and Talley for suspicion
of murder.”
He paused, as if he had been interrupted, and then said
savagely, “No, that’s not all! Goddammit, I’ll tell you when
I’m through—”
I looked up then. He reached slowly over and picked up
the purse with his free hand, and tilted its contents out onto
the desk. For an instant he stared down, stony-eyed, at the
little accumulation of feminine articles, the tiny wadded
handkerchief, comb, lipstick, mirror, and paper tissues, and
then he probed through it with his finger and pushed
something to one side and looked at it. It was an ignition
key.
“And tell Mitchell to bring enough men to search the
area,” he said curtly. “One of them got away on foot.”
I looked away. Georgia Langston was standing in the
doorway with tears swimming in her eyes. I pushed myself
erect some way, grabbed my jacket, and went out into the
hall and reached for her. She came to me with a little cry.
* * *
Talk of The Town— 201
Calhoun arrived a few minutes later. We were sitting on the
porch, smoking cigarettes and holding hands in the
darkness. “I tried to call you,” he said, “and warn you he
was on his way out here. It was my fault. I tried to tell him
about Pearl and Frankie and calling in the Federal boys. He
caught on to where you were, and tore out.”
“It’s all right,” I said. I told him what had happened. He
went inside.
More cars arrived, and the place was full of Deputies,
most of whom I’d never seen before. They left the headlights
on to illuminate the yard. Magruder and Mitchell came over,
glanced at me, and went inside to talk to Redfield.
“I tried to catch her,” Georgia said. “I followed her outside
after she ran into me, but she got away.”
“She had a gun,” I said.
“I know. But it seemed to me she was our only chance.”
“She would have been,” I said, “except she left her purse.
Incidentally, remind me to thank you sometime for putting
out those lights.”
The screen door opened and Redfield came out, followed
by Mitchell. “You’re in charge,” Redfield said. “Take over.
Search the place, inventory that stuff, and when you’ve got
‘em all, bring ‘em in and book ‘em. I’ll be at home.”
Mitchell nodded to me. “What about Chatham?”
“There’s no charge,” Redfield said curtly. “He can go any
time he wants.”
I stood up, took the gun from the pocket of my jacket, and
held it out to him butt-first. He accepted it without a word
and dropped it in his jacket. Turning abruptly away, he
walked across the yard, got into the cruiser, and drove
away, picking up speed as he shot out towards the road.
I sat down. Georgia watched the red lights turn into the
road and disappear. “Couldn’t one of you have said
something?”
“Said what?” I asked.
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
Calhoun came out. He lit a cigarette, and we watched the
flashlights searching out through the timber. “She still had
the gun, didn’t she?”
Talk of The Town— 202
“Yes,” I said.
“You haven’t heard a shot?”
“No,” I said. “And if she hasn’t by now, she probably
won’t.”
“More than likely she’s just sitting up there in the car.”
I thought about it. It made me shiver.
“They’ve got Frankie and Pearl spilling pretty well,” he
said. “They had Strader’s car with them that night, besides
the truck, so they split up on the way back. They brought the
safes on out here, and butchered ‘em open the next day.
They claim they didn’t go to Redfield’s house at all. Sounds
logical.”
“But she and Strader had some of the stuff?” I asked.
“Things that weren’t in the safe?”
“That’s right,” he replied. “You had it pegged all the time.
She told them that was the way it happened. He came
around the house and started to walk into the kitchen.
Strader was outside, getting some more of the stuff. All he
saw was a silhouette, and thought it was Redfield. There
were some watches and silver and things like that right in
plain sight on the table. And a dead truck driver lying in the
weeds behind a highway lunch-stand up in Georgia.”
Georgia Langston rose and walked a few steps away,
looking off into the darkness.
“I’m sorry,” Calhoun said.
“It’s all right,” she replied. “Bill said it would be that way.”
He stood up. “Well, I’ve got no business out here. And I
guess you’ve had all of it you want, now that it’s cleared up.
I’ll give you a lift to your car.”
“We won’t be able to find it till daylight,” I said. “It’s way
off the road in the timber.”
“Then let me drive you home. You can get it tomorrow.”
I looked at her.
She smiled. “Yes. Let’s go home.”
* * *
It was nearly five. We were sitting in the living-room
drinking coffee. I’d gone over to my room and showered and
shaved my battered face as well as I could, and put on some
Talk of The Town— 203
clean clothes. She was wearing dark pajamas and a dressing
gown and looked very lovely, but tired. The phone rang. I
went out and answered it.
It was Calhoun. They got her,” he said. “About an hour
ago. She made a full confession.”
“She admit having any idea why Langston came over
there?”
“She says no. But I doubt that part of it.”
“So do I,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
I went back and told her.
“I’m sorry, Georgia,” I said. “But there wasn’t any other
way it would fit, from the first. He went there hoping
something might happen. You see, he could just knock on
the door and ask for Redfield, and play the ball as it
bounced. But look at it this way—obviously, she’d made a
play for him before. He was forty-seven, and they had just
told him to get in his wheel-chair and watch the game from
the sidelines the rest of his life, so maybe it was a gesture.”
She interrupted me. “Bill.”
“What?”
“Why all the apology and explanation? Doesn’t it occur to
you I might want to try to thank you for what you’ve done? It
was a nightmare, and you ended it for me.”
I didn’t want to hurt you.”
She nodded. “It hurts, yes. But I don’t expect to go around
the rest of my life posing as a tragic figure. Listen, why
don’t we go outside? It should be just about dawn now, and
we can see exactly where we want to put that swimming
pool.”
We went out and sat on the edge of the concrete porch.
Day was beginning. I tossed a pebble. “Center of the
swimming pool right there. How does it look?”
“It’s a beautiful pool,” she said dreamily. Then she asked,
“You mean it? You really want to stay and do it?”
“What do you think?” I said. I grinned, or tried to. “Let’s
say I’ve given too much of my face to this cause to drop it
now.”
Talk of The Town— 204
She touched a few bruises with her fingertips. I was
hoping you would. But do you know why I asked? This is the
day they were supposed to have your car ready.”
I turned, and we stared at each other for an instant. It was
impossible, but she was right.
She gave a little smothered laugh, and went on in a faint
voice. “It’s inevitable. Bill. Some day somebody’s going to
ask you what on earth you did to pass the time, stuck in a
little place like this for three whole days.”
Talk of The Town— 205
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