Talk of The Town by Charles Williams(2)

Talk of The Town— 24
“You seem to be pretty interested, for it to be none of your
put-in.”
“I’m just studying the native customs,” I said. “Where I
grew up, people accused of murder were tried in court, not
in barrooms.”
“You’re new around here?”
“I’m even luckier than that,” I said. “I’m just passing
through.”
“How come you’re riding a taxi? Just to pump Jake?”
I was suddenly fed up with him. “Shove it,” I said.
His eyes filled with quick malice and he made as if to get
off the stool. The bartender glanced at him and he settled
back. His friend, a much bigger man, studied me with dislike
in his eyes, apparently trying to make up his mind whether
to buy a piece of it or not. Nothing happened, and in a
moment it was past.
I fished a dime from my pocket and went back to the
telephone. The dark girl and the man in the cowboy hat had
apparently been paying little attention to us. The girl
glanced up now as I went past. I had an impression she was
scarcely eighteen, but she looked as if she’d spent twice that
long in a furious and dedicated flight from any form of
innocence. Her left leg was stretched out under the edge of
the table with her skirt hiked up, and the man was grinning
slyly as he wrote something on her naked thigh with her
lipstick. She met my eyes and shrugged.

I stepped into the booth, and the instant I closed the door
I knew I’d found it. The fan came on with an uneven
whirring sound caused by the faulty bearing. I thought
swiftly. From the lunch-room in there he could even have
seen her drive in when she returned from town; that was the
reason he’d called almost immediately. But the maid had
said he’d called twice before while she was out. Well, that
meant those were from somewhere else and that he was
moving round. The chances were a thousand to one against
his being one of the three out there now.
I went through the motions of making a call, and as I left
the booth I shot a glance at the literary cowboy. He could
have been anywhere between twenty-eight and forty, with a
smooth, chubby face like that of an overgrown baby, and the
Talk of The Town— 25
beginnings of a paunch. The shirt, I noted now, wasn’t blue,
as I’d thought—at least, not all over. It was light gray in
front, with pearl buttons, and flaps on the breast pockets,
and was stained in two or three places in front as if he’d
spilled food on it. His eyes were china-blue and made you
think of a baby’s, apart from the quality of yokel shrewdness
and sly humor you could see in them as he patted the dark
girl on the leg and invited her to read whatever it was he’d
written on it. He was probably known as a card.
I went back to my beer. From sheer force of habit I sized
up Rupe and his friend, but they were as unlikely as the
humorist. Rupe was thin, swarthy, and mean-looking, the
one you’d always expect to find at the bottom of it any time
there was trouble reported in a bar, but he appeared normal
enough otherwise. The other was a big man with thinning
red-hair and a rugged slab of a face that could probably be
tough but wasn’t vicious or depraved. He wore oil-stained
khaki, and had black-rimmed fingernails as if he were a
mechanic.
Asking any questions was futile. It had been way over two
hours to begin with, and the air of coldness and suspicion
the place was saturated with told me I’d get no answers
anyway. I pushed back the beer and started to get up.
“I thought you said you was a stranger around here.” It
was Rupe. I scooped up my change. “That’s right.”
“You must know somebody. You just made a phone call.”
“So I did.”
“Without looking up the number.”
“You don’t mind?” I asked.
“Where you staying here?”
I turned and looked at him coldly. “Across the street.
Why?”
“I thought so.”
Ollie put down the glass he was polishing. “You leaving?”
he asked me.
“I’d started to,” I said.
“Maybe you’d better.”
“Why?”
Talk of The Town— 26
He shrugged. “Simple economics, friend. He’s a regular
customer.”
“Okay,” I said. “But if he’s that valuable, maybe you’d
better keep him tied up till I get out.”
Rupe started to slide off his stool, and the big redhead
eyed me speculatively. “Knock it off,” Ollie said quietly to
the two of them, and then jerked his head at me. I don’t
want to have to call the cops.”
“Right,” I said. I dropped the change in my pocket, and
went out through the lunch-room. The whole thing was petty
and stupid, but I had a feeling it was only a hint of what was
submerged here, like the surface uneasiness of water where
the big tide-rips ran deep and powerful far below, or the
sullen smoldering of a fire that was only waiting to break
out. I wondered why the feeling against her was so bitter.
They seemed convinced she was involved in the murder of
her husband; but if there were any evidence in that
direction, why hadn’t she been arrested and tried?
I crossed the highway in the leaden heat of late afternoon,
and again was struck by the bleak aspect of the motel
grounds as they would appear to the traveler who was
considering turning in. The place was going to ruin. Why
didn’t she have it landscaped, or sell out? I shrugged. Why
didn’t I mind my own business?
She was in the office, making entries in a couple of big
ledgers opened on the desk. She looked up at me with a
faint smile, and said, “Paper work.” I was conscious of
thinking she was prettier than I had considered her at first,
that there was something definitely arresting about the
contrast of creamy pallor against the rubber-mahogany
gleam of her hair. Some faces were like that, I thought; they
revealed themselves to you a little at a time rather than
springing at you all at once. Her hands were slender and
unutterably feminine, moving gracefully through the
confusion of papers.
I stopped inside the door and lit a cigarette. “He called
from the booth in the Silver King,” I said.
She glanced up, startled, and I realized I had probably
only made it worse by telling her he had been that near.
“How do you know?” she asked. “I mean, have you been—?”
Talk of The Town— 27
I nodded. “The fan. I checked them out around town till I
found the noisy one.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“For what?” I said. “I didn’t find him. He’d probably been
gone for hours. But you can pass it on to the Sheriff, for
what it’s worth.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to sound optimistic, but I could tell
she had little hope they would ever do anything about it. I
was filled with a sour disgust towards the whole place. Why
didn’t somebody bury it?
I went across to my room and poured a drink. Taking off
my sweaty shirt, I lay down on one of the beds with a
cigarette and stared morosely up at the ceiling. I wished
now I had belted Frankie while I had the chance. Stranded
in this place for at least another thirty-six hours.
You’re in sad shape, I thought; you can’t stand your own
company and you’ve got a grouch on at everybody else. The
only thing you can do is keep moving, and that doesn’t solve
anything. You’d feel just as lousy in St Petersburg, or Miami
—
There was a light knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
Mrs. Langston stepped inside, and then paused
uncertainly as she saw me stretched out in hairy nakedness
from the waist up. I made no move to get up. She probably
thought I had the manners of a pig, but it didn’t seem to
matter.
I gestured indifferently towards the armchair. “Sit down.”
She left the door slightly ajar and crossed to the chair. She
sat with her knees pressed together, and nervously pulled
down the hem of her dress, apparently ill-at-ease. “I—I
wanted to talk to you,” she said, as if uncertain how to
begin.
“What about?” I asked. I raised myself on one elbow and
nodded towards the chest. “Whisky there, and cigarettes.
Help yourself.”
You’re doing fine, Chatham; you haven’t completely lost
touch with all the little amenities. You can still grunt and
point.
Talk of The Town— 28
She shook her head. “Thank you, just the same.” She
paused, and then went on tentatively, “I believe you said you
used to be a policeman, but aren’t any more?”
That’s right,” I said.
“Would it be prying if I asked whether you’re doing
anything now?”
“The answer is no,” I said. “On both counts. I have no job
at all; I’m just on my way to Miami. The reason escapes me
at the moment.”
She frowned slightly, as if I puzzled her. “Would you be
interested in doing something for me, if I could pay you?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“I’ll come right to the point. Will you try to find out who
that man is?”
“Why me?” I asked.
She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Because I got
to thinking about the clever way you found out where he
called from. You could do it. I can’t stand it much longer,
Mr. Chatham. I have to answer the phone, and sometimes
when it rings I’m afraid I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t
know who he is, or where he is, or when he may be looking
at me, and when I walk down the street I cringe—”
I thought of that farcical meat-head, Magruder. Nobody
had ever been hurt over a telephone.
“No,” I said.
“But why?” she asked helplessly. “I don’t have much, but I
would be glad to pay you anything within reason.”
“In the first place, it’s police work. And I’m not a
policeman.”
“But private detectives—”
“Are licensed. And operating without a license can get you
into plenty of trouble. And in the second place, just
identifying him is pointless. The only way to stop him is a
conviction that will send him to jail or have him committed
to an asylum, and that means proof and an organization
willing to prosecute. Which brings you right back to the
police and the District Attorney. If they’re dragging their
feet, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Talk of The Town— 29
“I see,” she said wearily. I detested myself for cutting the
ground from under her this way. She was a hell of a lot of
very fine and sensitive girl taking too much punishment, and
I could feel her pulling at me. What she was showed all over
her, if you believed in evidence at all. She had courage, and
that thing called class, for lack of a better word, but they
couldn’t keep her going for ever. She’d crack up. Then I
wondered savagely why I was supposed to cry over her
troubles. They were nothing to me, were they?
“Why don’t you sell out and leave?” I asked.
“No!” The vehemence of it surprised me. Then she went
on, more calmly. “My husband put everything he had left
into this place, and I have no intention of selling it at a
sacrifice and running like a scared child.”
“Then why don’t you landscape it? It looks so desolate it
drives people away.”
She stood up. “I know. But I simply don’t have the money.”
And I had, I thought, and it was the kind of thing I was
perhaps subconsciously looking for, but I didn’t want to
become involved with her. I didn’t want to become involved
with anybody. Period.
She hesitated at the door. “Then you won’t even consider
it?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t like the way she could get through to
me, and I wanted to get her and her troubles off my back
once and for all. “There’s only one way I could stop him if I
did find him. Do you want to hire me to beat up an insane
man?”
She flinched. “No. How awful—”
I went on roughly, interrupting her. “I’m not sure I could. I
was suspended from the San Francisco Police Department
for brutality, but at least the man I beat up there was sane. I
would assume there is a difference, so let’s drop it.”
She frowned again, perplexed. “Brutality?”
“That’s right.”
She waited a minute for me to add something further, and
when I didn’t, she said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mr.
Chatham,” and went out and closed the door.
Talk of The Town— 30
I returned to studying the ceiling. It was no different from
a lot of others I had inspected.
* * *
About six I called another cab and went into town. I ate a
solitary dinner at the Steak House, bought some magazines,
and walked back to the motel in the blue and dustsuspended
haze of dusk. There were cars parked in front of
only three of the rooms. I was lying on the bed reading
about half an hour later when I heard another crunch to a
stop on the gravel, and then after a few minutes the sound
of voices raised in argument. Or at least, one of them was
raised. It was a man’s. The other sounded as if it might be
Mrs. Langston. It continued, and the man’s voice grew
louder. I got up and looked out.
It was night now, but the lights were on. There were three
of them before an open doorway two rooms to my left—Mrs.
Langston, a tough-looking kid of about twenty, and a
rawhide string of a girl at least five years younger who
seemed incomplete without a motor-cycle and a crash
helmet. A 1950 sedan was parked in front of the room. I
walked over and leaned against the wail and smelled
trouble.
Mrs. Langston was holding out her hand with some money
in it. “You’ll have to get out,” she said, “or I’ll call the
police.”
“Call the cops!” the kid said. “You kill me.” He was a big
insolent number with hazel eyes and a ducktail haircut the
color of wet concrete, and he wore Cossack boots, jeans, and
a Basque pullover thing that strained just the way he wanted
it across the ropy shoulders.
“What’s the difficulty?” I asked.
Mrs. Langston looked around. “He registered alone, but
when I happened to look out a minute later I saw her bob up
out of the back seat. I told him he’d have to leave, and tried
to return his money, but he won’t take it.”
“You want me to give it to him?” I asked.
The kid measured me with a nasty look. “Don’t get eager,
Dad. I know some dirty stuff.”
Talk of The Town— 31
“So do I,” I said, not paying too much attention to him.
The whole thing had a phony ring. She rented these rooms
for six dollars.
Mrs. Langston was worried. “Maybe I’d better call the
police.”
“Never mind,” I said. I took the money from her hand and
looked at the kid. “Who paid you?” I asked.
“Paid me? How stupid can you get? I don’t know what
you’re talking about. So me and my wife are on our
honeymoon and we stop at this crummy motel—”
“And then she hides out in back among the rice and old
shoes while you go in and register.”
“So she’s bashful, Dad.”
“Sure.” I said. She had all the dewy innocence of a kick in
the groin. “Where’s your luggage?”
“It got lost.”
“It’s an idea,” I said. I folded the two bills and shoved
them into the breast pocket of the T-shirt thing. “Beat it.”
He was fast, but he telegraphed with his eyes. I blocked
the left, and then took the knee against my thigh. “Slug him,
Jere!” the girl squealed. I chopped his guard down and hit
him. He made a half turn against the side of the car and slid
into the gravel on his face. I walked over by him. It was like
watching the slowed-down film strip of some tired old
football play you’ve seen so many times you can call every
move before it starts—rolling over, pushing up, the quick
stab at the right-hand trousers pocket, and the little
sideways flip of the wrist as it comes out, the thumb
pressing, and the metallic tunk as the blade snaps open. I
kicked his forearm and the knife sailed off into the gravel.
He grabbed the arm with his left hand, and leaned forward,
making no sound. I closed the knife and threw it over the
top of the building into the darkness beyond. He stood up in
a minute, still holding the arm.
“It’s not broken,” I said. “Next time it will be.”
They got in, watching me like two wild animals. The girl
drove. The sedan went out onto the road and disappeared,
going east, away from town. I turned back. Mrs. Langston
was leaning against one of the posts supporting the roof of
the porch with her cheek against her forearm, watching me.
Talk of The Town— 32
She wasn’t scared, or horrified, or shocked; the only thing in
her eyes was weariness, an absolute weariness, I thought, of
all bitterness and all violence. She straightened, and pushed
a hand back through her hair. “Thank you,” she said.
“Not at all.”
“What did you mean when you asked who paid him?”
“It was just a hunch. They could get you into plenty of
trouble.”
She nodded. “I know. But it didn’t occur to me it wasn’t
their own idea.”
“The idea’s probably nothing new to them,” I said. “But
since when did they need a six-dollar room?”
“Oh.”
“They’re not from around here?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Back in the room, I soaked a puffy hand for a while and
read until nearly midnight. I had turned out the light and
was just dropping off to sleep when the telephone rang on
the night table between the beds.
I reached for it, puzzled. Nobody would be calling me
here. “Hello,” I muttered drowsily.
“Chatham?” It was a man’s voice, toneless, anonymous
scarcely louder than a whisper.
“Yes.”
“We don’t need you. Beat it.”
I was fully awake now. “Who is it?”
“Never mind,” he went on softly. “Just keep going.”
“Why don’t you write me an anonymous letter? That’s
another corny gesture.”
“We know a better one. We’ll show you, just by way of a
hint.”
He hung up.
I replaced the instrument and lit a cigarette. It was
mystifying and utterly pointless. Was it my friend Rupe, with
a nose full? No-o. The voice was unidentifiable, but whoever
it was hadn’t sounded drunk. But how had he known my
name? I shrugged it off and turned out the light. Anonymous
telephone threats! How silly could yon get?
Talk of The Town— 33
* * *
When I awoke it was past nine. After a quick shower, I
dressed and went out, intending to go across the road to
Ollie’s for some breakfast. It was a hot, bright morning, and
the sudden glare of the sun on white gravel hurt my eyes at
first. The cars of the night before were gone. Josie was
waddling along in front of the doors in the other wing with
her baskets of cleaning gear and fresh bed linen.
“Good mawnin’,” she said. I waved and started across
towards the road just as she let herself into one of the
rooms. Then I heard her scream.
She came plunging down the long porch that linked the
rooms, running like a fat bear, and crying, “Oh, Miss
Georgia! Oh, Good Lawd in Heaven, Miss Georgia—!”
I didn’t bother with her. I whirled and went across the
courtyard on the run, towards the door she’d left open as
she fled. I slid to a stop, braking myself with a hand on the
door-jamb, and looked in, and I could feel the cold rage
come churning up inside me. It was a masterpiece of
viciousness. I’d seen one other before, and you never forget
just what they look like.
Paint hung from the plaster on walls and ceilings in bilious
strips, and some of the piled bedclothes and curtains still
foamed slightly and stank, and the carpet was a darkened
and disintegrating ruin. Varnish was peeling from all the
wooden surfaces of the furniture, the chest of drawers, the
night table, and the headboards of the beds. I heard them
running up behind me, and then she was standing by my
side in the doorway.
“Don’t go in,” I said.
She looked at it, but she didn’t say anything. I was ready
to catch her and put out my hand to take her arm. but she
didn’t fall. She merely leaned against the door-jamb and
closed her eyes. Josie stared and made a moaning sound in
her throat and patted her clumsily on the shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked me, her eyes big and frightened.
“What make them sheets and things bubble like that?”
“Acid,” I said. I reached down and picked up a fragment of
the carpet. It fell apart in my hands. I smelled it.
“What’s the carpet made of, do you know?” I asked.
Talk of The Town— 34
She stared at me without comprehension.
I asked Mrs. Langston. “The carpet. Do you know whether
it’s wool or cotton? Or a synthetic?”
She spoke without opening her eyes. “It’s cotton.”
Probably sulphuric, I thought. I could walk in it if I washed
my shoes right afterwards. From the doorway I could see
both the big mirrors had been placed on one of the beds and
smashed, covered with bedclothes to deaden the sound, and
I wanted to see just what he’d used on the bath and washbasin.
“Watch her,” I warned Josie, and started to step
inside. She cracked then.
She opened her eyes at last, and then put her hands up
against the sides of her face and began to laugh. I lunged at
her, but she turned and ran out on the gravel and stood
there in the sun pushing her fingers up through her hair
while tears ran down her cheeks and she shook with the
wild shrieks of laughter that were like the sound of
something tearing. I grabbed her arm with my left hand and
slapped her, and when she gasped and stopped laughing to
stare inquiringly at me as if I were somebody she’d never
seen before I grabbed her up in my arms and started
running towards the office.
“Come on,” I snapped at Josie.
I put her down in one of the bamboo armchairs just as
Josie came waddling frantically through the door behind me.
I waved towards the telephone.
“Who’s her doctor? Tell him to get out here right away.”
“Yessuh.” She grabbed up the receiver and began dialing.
I turned and knelt beside Georgia Langston. She hadn’t
fainted, but her face was deathly pale and her eyes
completely without expression as her hands twisted at the
cloth of her skirt.
“Mrs. Langston,” I said. “It’s all right.”
She didn’t even see me.
“Georgia!” I said sharply.
She frowned then, and some of the blankness went out of
her eyes and she looked at me. And this time I was there.
“Oh,” she said. She put her hands up to her face and
shook her head. “I—I’m all right,” she said shakily.
Talk of The Town— 35
Josie put down the phone. “The doctor’ll be here in a few
minutes,” she said.
“Good.” I stood up. “What was the number of that room?”
”That was Five.”
I hurried over behind the desk. “Do you know where she
keeps the registration cards?”
“I’ll get them,” Mrs. Langston said. She started to get up. I
strode back and pushed her down in the chair again. “Stay
there. Just tell me where they are.”
“A box. On the shelf under the desk. If you’ll hand them to
me—”
I found it and put it in her lap. “Do you take license
numbers?”
“Yes,” she said, taking the cards out one by one and
glancing at them. “I’ve got that one, I know. It was a man
alone. He came in about two o’clock this morning.”
“Good.” I whirled back to the telephone and dialed
Operator. When she answered, I said, “Get me the Highway
Patrol.”
“There’s not an office here,” she said. “The nearest one—”
“I don’t care where it is,” I said. “Just get it for me.”
“Yes, sir. Hold on, please.”
I turned to Mrs. Langston. She had found the card. “What
kind of car was it?” I asked.
She was seized by a spasm of trembling, as if with a chill.
She took a deep breath. “A Ford. A green sedan. It was a
California license, and I remember thinking it was odd the
man should have such a Southern accent, almost like a
Georgian.”
“Fine,” I said. “Read the number off to me.”
“It’s M-F-A-three-six-three.”
It took a second to sink in. I was repeating it. “M-F-what?”
I whirled, reached out, and grabbed it from her hand.
“I’m ringing your party, sir,” the operator said.
I looked at the number on the card. “Never mind,
Operator,” I said slowly. “Thank you.” I dropped the receiver
back on the cradle.
Talk of The Town— 36
Mrs. Langston stared at me. “What is it?” she asked
wonderingly.
“That’s my number,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“They were the plates off my car.”
Talk of The Town— 37
4
We’ll show you tomorrow, he’d said. But just a hint! you
understand. The job was for my benefit. He’d done five
hundred to a thousand dollars’ worth of damage to one of
her rooms to get his message across to me.
I stepped over by her. “Can you describe him?” I asked.
Her head was bowed again, and her hands trembled as
they pleated and unpleated a fold of her skirt. She was
slipping back into the wooden insularity of shock. I knelt
beside the chair. I hated to hound her this way, but when
the doctor arrived he’d given her a sedative, and it might be
twenty-four hours before I could talk to her again.
“Can you give me any kind of description of him?” I asked
gently.
She raised her head a little and focused her eyes on me,
then drew a hand across her face in a bewildered gesture.
She took a shaky breath. “I—I—”
Josie shot me an angry and troubled glance. “Hadn’t you
ought to leave her alone? The pore child can’t takes no
more.”
“I know,” I said.
Mrs. Langston made a last effort. “I’m all right.” She
paused, and then went on in a voice that was almost
inaudible and was without any expression at all. “I think he
was about thirty-five. Tall. Perhaps six foot. But very thin.
Talk of The Town— 38
He had sandy hair, and pale blue eyes, and he’d been out in
the sun a lot. You know—wrinkles in the corners of the eyes
—bleached eyebrows. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“You’re doing fine,” I told her. “Can you think of anything
else?”
She took a deep breath. “I think he wore glasses. . . Yes. . .
. They had steel rims. . . . He had on a white shirt. . . . But no
tie.”
“Any distinguishing marks? Scars, things like that?”
She shook her head.
A car came to a stop on the gravel outside. I stood up.
“What’s the doctor's name?” I asked Josie.
“Dr. Graham,” she said.
I went out. A youngish man with a pleasant, alert face and
a blond crew-cut was slamming the door of a green twoseater.
He had a small black bag in his hand.
“Dr. Graham? My name’s Chatham,” I said. We shook
hands and I told him quickly what had happened. “On top of
all the rest of it, I suppose it overloaded her. Hysteria, shock
—I don’t know exactly what you’d call it. But I think she’s on
the ragged edge of a nervous breakdown.”
“Yes, I see. We’d better have a look at her,” he said
politely, but with the quick impatience of all physicians for
all lay diagnosis.
I followed him inside.
He spoke to her, and then frowned at the woodenness of
her response. “We’d better get her into the bedroom,” he
said. “If you’ll help—”
“Just bring your bag,” I said.
She tried to protest and stand, but I picked her up and
followed Josie in through the curtained doorway behind the
desk. It was a combined living- and dining-room. There were
two doors opposite. The one on the right led into the
bedroom. It was cool and quiet, with the curtains closed
against the sun, and furnished with quiet good taste. The
rug was pearl-gray, and there was a double bed covered
with a dark blue corduroy spread. I placed her on it.
Talk of The Town— 39
“I’m all right now,” she said, trying to sit up. I pushed her
gently back onto the pillow. Framed in the aureole of dark
and tousled hair, her face was like white wax.
Dr. Graham placed his bag on a chair and was taking out
the stethoscope. He nodded for me to leave. “You stay,” he
said to Josie.
I went back through the outer room. It had a fireplace at
one end, and there were a number of mounted fish on the
walls and some enlarged photographs of boats. I thought
absently that the fish were dolphin, but I paid little attention
to them. I was in a hurry. I grabbed up the phone in the
office and called the Sheriff.
“He’s not here,” a man’s voice said. “This is Redfield.
What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling from the Magnolia Lodge-” I began.
“Yes?” he interrupted. “What’s wrong out there now. The
voice wasn’t harsh so much as abrupt and impatient and
somehow annoyed.
“Vandalism,” I said. “An acid job. Somebody’s wrecked
one of the rooms.”
“Acid? When did it happen?”
“Sometime between two a.m. and daylight.”
“He rented the room? Is that it?” In spite of the undertone
of annoyance or whatever it was, this one obviously was
more on the ball than that comedian I’d talked to yesterday.
There was a tough professional competence in the way he
snapped the questions.
“That’s right,” I said. “How about shooting a man here?”
“You got a license number? Description of the car?”
“The car's a green Ford sedan,” I replied, and quickly
repeated her description of the man. “The number was
phony. The plates were stolen.”
“Hold it a minute!” he cut in brusquely. “What do you
mean, they’re stolen? How would you know?”
“Because they were mine. My car's in the garage, being
worked on. The big garage with a showroom—”
“Not so fast. Just who are you, anyway?”
I told him. Or started to. He interrupted me again. “Look, I
don’t get you in this picture at all. Put Langston on.”
Talk of The Town— 40
“She’s collapsed,” I said. “The doctor’s with her. How
about getting a man out here to look at that mess?”
“We’ll send somebody,” he said. “And you stick around.
We want to talk to you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
He hung up.
I stood for a moment, thinking swiftly. The chances were it
was sulphuric. That was cheap, and common, easy to get.
And if I could neutralize it soon enough I might save a little
something from the wreckage. The woodwork and furniture
could be refinished if the stuff didn’t eat in too far. But I had
to be sure, first. Turning, I hurried back into the room
behind the curtained doorway, and took the door on the left
this time. It was the kitchen. I began yanking open the
cupboards above the sink. In a moment I found what I was
looking for, a small tin of bicarbonate of soda.
Grabbing it, I went out and up to Room 5 at the double. I
stood in the doorway and rubbed my handkerchief into the
sodden ruin of the carpet until it was damp with the acid.
Then I spread it on the concrete slab of the porch, sprinkled
a heavy coating of soda over one half of it and waited. In a
few minutes the untreated part tore at a touch, like wet
paper, but that under the soda was merely discolored. I
kicked it off onto the gravel and went back. My hand itched
where it had been in contact with the acid. I found a tap in
front of the office and washed it.
I could take her car if I could find the keys. But I wanted
to talk to the doctor before he left, and I had to be here
when the men from the Sheriff’s office showed up. I went
inside and called a taxi. When I hung up I could hear the
professional murmur of the doctor's voice in the bedroom.
With nothing to occupy my mind for the moment, I was
conscious of the rage again. The yearning to get my hands
on him was almost like sexual desire. Cool off, I thought;
you’d better watch that. In another minute or two a car
stopped outside. I went out.
It was Jake, with his keyboard of grave and improbable
teeth. “Howdy,” he said.
“Good morning, Jake.” I handed him a twenty. “Run over
to the nearest grocery store or market, will you, and bring
me a case of baking soda.”
Talk of The Town— 41
He stared. “A case? You sure must have a king-size
indigestion.”
“Yeah,” I said. When I offered no explanation, he took off,
still looking at me as if I’d gone mad.
There’d probably be very little chance of tracing the acid,
I thought. We were dealing with a sharper mind than that:
he’d know better than to buy it, and if he could break into
that garage to lift my number plates he could certainly do
the same to some battery shop to steal it.
I glanced at my watch with sudden impatience. What the
hell was keeping them? It had been ten minutes since I’d
called. I went back inside. Josie had come out and was
standing by the desk in doleful and anxious suspension as if
she couldn’t figure out which way to turn to pick up the
broken thread of her day. The doctor came out through the
curtains and set his bag on the desk. He was carrying a
prescription pad.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He glanced at me, frowning. “You’re not a relative by any
chance?”
“No,” I said.
He nodded. “I didn’t think she had any here—”
“Listen, Doctor,” I said, “somebody’s got to take charge
here. I don’t know what friends she has in town, or where
you could run down her next of kin, so you might as well tell
me. I’m a friend of hers.”
“Very well.” He put down the prescription pad, undipped
his pen, and started writing. “Get these made up right away
and start giving them as soon as she wakes up. I gave her a
sedative, so it’ll be late this afternoon or tonight. But what
she needs more than anything is rest--”
He stopped then and glanced up at me. “And what I mean
by rest is exactly that. Absolute rest, in bed. Quiet. With as
few worries as possible and no more emotional upheavals if
you can help it.”
“You name it,” I said. “She gets it.”
“Try to get some food into her. I’d say off-hand she was
twenty pounds underweight. I can’t tell until we can run lab
tests, of course, but I don’t think it’s anemia or anything
Talk of The Town— 42
organic at all. It looks like overwork, lack of sleep, and
emotional strain.”
“What about nervous breakdown?”
He shook his head. “That’s always unpredictable; it varies
too much with individual temperament and nervous reserve.
We’ll just have to wait and see what she’s like in the next
few days. Off-hand, I’d say she’s dangerously close to it. I
don’t know how long she’s been over-drawing her account,
and I’m no psychiatrist, anyway, but I do think she’s been
under too much pressure too long—”
His voice trailed off. Then he shrugged, and said crisply,
“Well, to get back to more familiar ground. This is a
tranquillizer. And this one’s vitamins. And here’s
Phenobarbital.” He glanced up at me as he shoved the
prescriptions across the desk. “Keep the phenobarbs
yourself and give it to her by individual dose, as directed.”
“That bad?” I asked.
“No. Probably not. But why take chances?”
“Had I better round up a nurse?”
He glanced at Josie. “Do you stay here nights?”
“No, suh,” she replied. “I ain’t been, but I could.”
“Fine. There should be somebody around. For the next few
nights, anyway.”
“You do that,” I told her. “Let the rest of the place go and
just take care of her. I’m going to close it for the time being,
anyway.”
Dr. Graham gathered up his bag. “Call me when she
wakes up. I won’t come out unless it’s necessary, but you
can tell when you talk to her.”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
He drove off. Just as he was going out onto the highway,
Jake turned in. I set the case of bicarbonate on the porch,
took the change, paid him, and gave him a large tip. He
departed towards town, shaking his head.
I found a long garden hose that would reach up to No. 5,
and coupled it to the tap outside the office. But I couldn’t
touch a thing until they’d been over it. I glanced up the
highway; there was no Sheriff’s car in sight. I looked at my
Talk of The Town— 43
watch, threw the hose savagely onto the gravel, strode into
the office, and picked up the phone.
The same Deputy answered. “Sheriff’s office. Redfield.”
“This is Chatham, at the Magnolia Lodge motel—”
“Yes, yes,” he cut me off brusquely. “What do you want
now?”
“I want to know when you’re going to send somebody out
here.”
“Don’t heave your weight around. We’re sending a man.”
“When?” I asked. “Try to make it this week, will you? I
want to neutralize that acid and wash the place out before it
eats it down to the foundations.”
“Well, wash it out. You’ve got our permission.”
“Look, don’t you want pictures for evidence? And how
about checking the hardware for prints?”
“Get off my back, will you? For Christ’s sake, if he was
working with acid, he had on rubber gloves. Prints!”
There was a lot of logic in that, of course. But it wasn’t
infallible, by any means, and as an assumption it was
slipshod police work. And I had an odd feeling he knew it.
He was being a little too hard, a little too vehement
“And another thing,” he went on, “about this pipe dream
that he was using your plates. I don’t like gags like that not
even a little. I just called the garage, and both plates are
right there on your car.”
I frowned. Had she seen them or merely taken he word for
it? Then I remembered. She’d said they were California tags,
but all he’d put down on the card had been the number.
She’d seen them herself.
“So he put them back,” I said. “Don’t ask me why.”
“I won’t. I’d be goofy enough if I even believed he’d taken
them.”
“Did they report the garage had been entered?”
“No. Of course not.”
“All right, listen. It’s very easy to settle. But why not get
off your fat and go do it yourself instead of telephoning? If
you’ll check that garage, you’ll find it’s been broken into
somewhere. And you’ll also find those plates have been
Talk of The Town— 44
taken off, and then put back. There’s no strain. California
didn’t issue a new plate in ‘fifty-seven, just a sticker tab. So
they’ve been bolted on there for eighteen months. If the
bolts are still frozen, the drinks are on me. But how about
dusting them for prints first? Not that I think you’ll find any:
the joker is too smart for that.”
“Do you think I’m nuts? Why the hell would anybody go to
all that trouble to get a license plate?”
“If you ever get out here,” I said, “I’ll tell you about it.”
“Stick around. There’s going to be somebody. You’re
beginning to interest me.”
“Well, that’s something,” I said, but he’d already hung up.
I put down the instrument, and was just going out the door
when it rang. I went back. “Hello. Magnolia Lodge motel.”
There was no answer, only the faint hiss of background
noise and what might have been somebody breathing.
“Hello,” I said again.
The receiver clicked in my ear as he hung up.
The creep, I thought. Or was it my friend this time,
checking to see if I was still around? Then a sudden thought
arrested me, and I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me
before. It could be the same man. Maybe he wasn’t a psycho
at all. Maybe it was a systematic and cold-blooded campaign
to wreck her health and sanity and ruin her financially. And
he’d wanted to get rid of me in case I was trying to help her.
But why? There was suspicion here, God knows, like a
dark and ugly stain all over town, and distrust and
antagonism, but they couldn’t explain a thing like this. A
deliberate attempt to drive somebody crazy was worse than
murder. It had to be the work of a hopelessly warped mind.
But could a deranged mind call the shots the way he had last
night? I didn’t know. The thing grew murkier every time you
turned around.
Out behind the building I found some planks that would do
to stand on, and dragged them up in front of No. 5. Just as I
was throwing them down on the gravel a police car turned
in from the highway. There was only one officer in it. He
stopped and got out, a big man still in his twenties, with the
build and movements of an athlete. He had a fleshy, goodlooking
face with a lot of assurance in it, a cleft chin, green
Talk of The Town— 45
eyes, and long dark hair meticulously combed. He could
have attacked you with the creases in the khaki trousers and
the short jacket, but he wouldn’t have needed to. The
gunbelt about his waist carried a .45 with pearl handles, and
dangling from the trouser belt was an embossed leather
case containing his handcuffs. With only a few changes of
uniform he could have just stepped off the set of Rose
Marie, and I half expected him to burst into song. Cut it out,
I thought. You’ve had a grouch on so long you hate
everybody.
“Redfield?” I asked.
He gave me a negligent shake of the head. “Magruder.”
“I’m glad to see you,” I said. “My name’s Chatham.”
He contained his ecstasy over that with no great difficulty.
“I hear you’re real antsy for somebody to look at that room,”
he said. “So let’s look at it.”
I nodded towards the open doorway of No. 5. He strode
over with the insolent grace of a bullfighter, his thumbs
hooked in the gunbelt, and peered in.
“Hmmm,” he said. Then he turned and jerked his head at
me. “All right. Get those planks in there.”
I glanced at him, but kept my mouth shut, and tossed the
planks in. I felt like Sir Waller Raleigh. While I was standing
on the second and dropping the third, which would reach
opposite the bathroom door, he stepped inside.
Glancing around at the obscene and senseless ruin, he
said casually, “Quite a mess, huh?”
“That was more or less the way it struck me,” I said. He
paid no attention. I stepped over to look into the bathroom,
and felt the proddings of rage again. He’d got the fixtures,
all right. Both the tub and wash-basin had dark slashes
across the bottom where he’d gouged the enamel off. I
wondered how he’d managed to keep the noise down.
Probably used a rubber mallet with the chisel, I thought.
He’d also used the same tool to gouge long streaks across
the tile on the walls. On the floor were two empty one-gallon
glass jugs with the rubber stoppers lying beside them.
Magruder came up alongside me and peered in. He
grinned. “That guy was in a real pet, wasn’t he?”
Talk of The Town— 46