Talk of The Town by Charles Williams(7)

“You have,” I said. So she’d left here in February, and
started teaching in Galicia in September. Where was she
and what was she doing for six months?
“I suppose there was some insurance?” I asked.
“Not very much, I’m afraid.” She smiled gently. “Teachers
don’t make a great deal, you know. It seems to me there was
a policy for about five thousand.”
Ten, with a double indemnity clause, I thought. “Would
there be anybody else in town who might know where she
went?” I asked. “Any of his family, perhaps?”
“No,” she said. “He came from Orlando. There are some
Spragues here, but no kin.”
She finished her coffee. I thanked her, and walked back to
the office with her. Apparently I was up against a dead end
now. There was nothing in any of this to link her with
Strader, and I had no lead at all on where she could have
spent that six months. I was in the station wagon and just
turning on the ignition when it hit me. How fat-headed could
you get? I reached for my wallet and snatched out the sheet
of paper on which I’d scribbled the dope Lane had given me.
The dates jibed, all right. Eager now, and very excited, I
strode back into the drugstore and headed for the phone
booth.
I couldn’t pull it on her, because she’d recognize my voice.
But I could start with her. I dialed the business office of the
phone company and asked for Ellen Beasley.
“This is that quiz man again,” I said. “If you’ll answer just
one more for me I’ll quit bothering you.”

“Why certainly,” she replied.
“Who is the present principal of the junior high?”
“Mr. Edson. Joel Edson. And I believe he’s in town now.
He just came back from some summer work he was doing at
Gainesville.”
“Thanks a million,” I said.
I looked up Edson’s number and dialed. I was in luck.
“Yes, speaking,” he said. “Who is it?”
Talk of The Town— 133
“My name’s Carter, Mr. Edson,” I said heartily. “And
you’re just the man I was hoping to get hold of. I’m with Bell
and Howell, and I wanted to see if I couldn’t work out a little
demonstration for you and some of the School Board
members—”
“For what kind of equipment?” he asked.
“Sound-motion picture projectors. You’ve got to see these
to—”
He laughed. “You people ought to keep records. We’ve
already got one of your projectors. And it’s working fine.”
I could feel excitement running along my nerves. That’s
odd,” I said, mystified. “I wonder how the office fell down on
that. You’re sure it’s one of ours?”
“Sure,” he replied. “We’ve had it about—hmm, four years,
or something like that.”
“You didn’t buy it second-hand?”
“No. We got it direct from you people. I remember now,
exactly when it was. It was October of ‘fifty-three, just a few
months before Bob died. Bob Sprague, that is—he was the
principal here before me. I was teaching physics and
chemistry in the high school, and got in on the
demonstration when Bob and his wife and your man were
trying to wear down the Superintendent and School Board.
Your man was here for several days, and as a matter of fact
he sold the Board on buying one for the elementary school
too.”
“Well, that’s one on us, Mr. Edson. Somebody just goofed
in the office. I’m sorry I troubled you.”
“No trouble at all.”
“You don’t remember who the salesman was, do you?”
“No-o. I don’t recall anything about him except that he
was a pretty big guy, and he talked a good game of football.”
“Well, thank you very much.”
My luck was really running. I was hot, and I knew it. I
went back to the soda fountain and talked the clerk out of a
handful of change and put in a call to Lane’s office in Miami.
“He’s not in,” his girl said. “But, wait a minute. He called
in a little while ago on his way to see somebody in Miami
Talk of The Town— 134
Beach, and he gave me a number. Give me yours, and he
should call you back in a few minutes at the outside.”
I gave her the number and sat down at one of the tables to
wait. I had to be right; the hunch was too strong and the
pieces were going together so beautifully I couldn’t miss. I
gazed out through the window at the sun-blasted square,
thinking about it, and then I was thinking of Georgia
Langston. Goofing off, I thought. But it was pleasant.
The phone rang in the booth. I waved off the soda clerk
and ducked in.
I have a long-distance call for a Mr. Chatham,” the
operator intoned mechanically.
“This is Chatham,” I said. I accepted the charges and
pushed in quarters until she was satisfied. “Hello. Lane?
He came on. “Yeah. My girl just got hold of me. I’m glad
you called; I was just about to buzz you.”
“Good,” I said. “But first I’ve got a question. In ‘fifty-three,
Strader was selling sound gear and motion picture
projectors to schools and churches and so on. Whose
projectors?”
“Bell and Howell.”
It was perfect, right down the line. “Well, look. Did he
have an exclusive territory?”
“No-o. Not exactly, as I get it. The distributor’s territory,
the one I gave you, was exclusive, but I think there were two
salesmen working it for him.”
That wasn’t quite so good. But the odds were still much
better than the mathematical fifty-fifty would indicate.
“What’s new there?”
“Couple of things. I still haven’t come up with a girl friend
with any Galicia angle to her, but I haven’t much more than
scratched the surface. God, that guy—I wish he’d written an
instruction manual before he kicked off, and let some of the
rest of us in on his M.O. But to get back. I’ve filled in a
couple of soft spots in the employment record. Remember I
told you I thought he’d been in New Orleans for a while?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I nailed down that lead. I may have racked you up
for a little additional expense—couple of toll calls and a bill
Talk of The Town— 135
for twenty-five dollars for a boy I do business with there
once in a while—but I figured you’d want the dope.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s all right. What did he find out?”
”Strader was there in ‘fifty-four. Spring and summer, from
March until about the end of July. Shacked up, of course.
This one was a smooth job with hair about the color of a
good grade of burgundy, and he called her Sin. I don’t know
whether he had a sense of humor, or whether it was just
short for Cynthia. Still no line on anything criminal. But this
time he wasn’t working for somebody else. He had a bar, on
Decatur Street. Or at least, he did till he went broke. I don’t
know where he got the money to buy it—”
“From an insurance company,” I said. “Sin’s husband tried
to take a bath while holding onto a light circuit.”
“God, do they still get away with that up there?”
“There’s a chance it could have been the McCoy,” I said.
“There was only five involved—ten if it carried double
Indemnity.”
“Yeah. Either that, or she was just smart enough not to
take out any more. That’s where they usually goof.”
“Well, they’ll never prove it one way or the other. But
we’ve got our own headaches. You come up with anything
else?”
“Just one other item. I found out what he was doing with
this Electronic Enterprises Outfit in Orlando. It was burglar
alarms. New patent of some kind.”
“Oh?” That was an odd one.
“Yeah. He had a good background for that kind of sales
job, because of the Navy training. Anyway, he was selling
them, and supervising installation. Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida. Jewelry stores, mostly. Now, is there anything else
you want me to run down? I gather you’ve already found the
girl?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve found her. I may never prove it, but I
know who she is.” I paused, frowning thoughtfully at the
blank wall of the booth. “There is one other thing you could
do. What’s your big newspaper there, with the best Statewide
and Southern coverage?”
“The Herald.”
Talk of The Town— 136
“If you can get hold of back copies. I’d like November
eight of last year. The same day the Langston story broke.
Airmail it to me.”
“Langston story’d be in the ninth. It’s a morning paper and
it wouldn’t have made the deadline.”
”Sure. Be faster, though, if I looked up whatever you want
and called you.”
“That’s the hell of it,” I said. “I don’t know what I am
looking for. Maybe nothing. Anyway, shoot your bill along
and I’ll send you a check.”
“Sure thing. It was a pleasure doing business with you,
Mr. Chatham.”
“You did a good job. If I get down to Miami I’ll look in on
you and we’ll have a drink.”
“Do that.”
I went back out and got in the station wagon. I knew now
who Strader’s girl friend was, for what it was worth. I
couldn’t prove it. If I even said it aloud, I’d have my head
blown off. She still didn’t have anything to do with Langston.
And she still wasn’t the girl who’d tried to get me killed.
Not yet, anyway.
Talk of The Town— 137
12
It was a quarter to five when I turned in at the Magnolia
Lodge and stopped in front of the office. Georgia Langston,
dressed in slacks, was on a step-ladder painting the trim and
supporting pillars along the porch.
“I give up,” I said.
She smiled and came down. She was wearing a Cuban or
Mexican straw hat with an unfinished brim. “You can stop
the fragile business as from now,” she said. “I went to Dr.
Graham for the balance of that check-up this afternoon, and
there’s nothing wrong with me at all. I needed about two
days’ rest and I’ve had that.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “We’ll celebrate by going out for
dinner. But come on inside; I’ve got something to tell you.”
Josie had gone home. I stirred a pair of Martinis and we
sat down in the living-room. “Hold onto your hat,” I said.
“Cynthia Redfield was an old flame of Strader’s. She lived
with him in New Orleans for about six months in 1954. After
her first husband was killed in an accident that might not
have been as accidental as it looked.” I told her the whole
story.
She put down her drink with a look of horror. “But—it
seems so impossible. And why hasn’t anybody found it out
before?”
Talk of The Town— 138
I lit a cigarette. “For a lot of reasons. The first being just
what you said—it’s impossible. She’s not the type. Why
should anybody even suspect it? The only thing she actually
had to hide was the fact she knew Strader while she was
there. The rest of it would be common knowledge—and
harmless. The police here and in Miami checked Strader
out, but this happened in another state. If it’d been an F.B.I,
case, they’d have found it out, but it wasn’t. The only F.B.I,
angle was whether he had a previous criminal record, which
he didn’t. And, then, she’s married to Redfield. Who was
going to raise the question?”
“Do you think she was—the one that night?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt of it.”
“But how can we prove it?”
“We can’t,” I said.
“Not ever? It’s horrible. It’s unbelievable—”
“I know. But, look—-We could bring witnesses here from
New Orleans—which isn’t easy, believe me—and all we’d
prove was that she’d once known Strader. If I went to the
District Attorney with a flimsy thing like that, he’d laugh in
my face. And if I went to Redfield, he’d kill me.”
She gestured helplessly. “What can we do?”
“Nothing, on the basis of what we have now. There has to
be more.”
“More evidence?”
“Any evidence at all would be more evidence,” I said.
“What I mean is there has to be more to the case than the
simple fact she was carrying on an affair with Strader.
That’d obviously have nothing to do with your husband and
yet they killed him. Why?”
She shook her head wearily. “It’s insane.”
“Listen,” I said. I asked you this once before, but I’ve got
to ask it again, so don’t jump down my throat. Is there any
chance at all your husband could have been involved with
her?”
“No,” she replied. “It’s absolutely inconceivable.”
”Try to be objective about it,” I urged. “Say that he’d
found out what she was. That’s possible, you know. He
Talk of The Town— 139
might have seen her with Strader one of those other times,
or she could have made a play for him—”
“No,” she said firmly. “I just can’t buy it, Bill.”
“Tell me a little about him.”
She gazed moodily at the end of her cigarette. “He was a
man who’d been almost wrecked, physically at least, and
he’d just about finished rebuilding his whole attitude
towards life. I say just about. He still had a little way to go,
but he was closing the gap. Everybody up here thought he
was ideally happy, of course, retired, with the motel to
furnish him with an adequate living, and all the leisure he
wanted to fish, but you don’t turn off drive and ambition that
easily and just overnight. I was helping him, I think, and he
needed me.
“He’d lived most of his life like a steam engine with the
safety valve tied down and the throttle wide open, and in the
end, of course, it almost killed him. We met in a doctor’s
office. A clinic, rather. I was the lab technician, and he was
the patient of one of the men there, the cardiologist.
“It was just after he and his first wife broke up. You might
say I caught him on the rebound, except there really wasn’t
much in the way of a rebound—he was going too fast and hit
too many things all at once. A messy divorce and a big
property settlement, a heart attack, and the loss of a lawsuit
that almost wiped him out financially. However, if I’m giving
you the impression I gathered up a bunch of pieces and tried
to put them back together, I don’t mean to. The man was
still there, more or less intact but just badly battered. He
still had a sense of humor, most of the time, and he could
get a perspective view of it—again, most of the time. He was
being sentenced to live what he considered an old lady’s
existence for the rest of his life if he wanted to have any rest
of his life, and I simply helped him to do it. We liked each
other from the first, and the things we did together were
quiet things. His big fishing days were over, for instance,
but we found we both liked to sail small boats. We liked to
picnic, and lie in the water with masks and snorkels and
watch sea life. Music bored him, but we both liked to read—
Oh, I could go on, Bill, but what’s the point of it? He simply
wouldn’t be capable of a thing like that. He had too much
Talk of The Town— 140
sense of decency, to begin with. And Redfield was a friend of
his.”
I smiled at her. “I’m not accusing him of it,” I said. “It’s
just that in a thing like this you have to consider every
angle. And God knows we’ve got few enough angles as it is.”
I got up restlessly and walked back and forth across the
room. It was so damned baffling. “Are you sure you told him
about Redfield’s canceling the trip?”
“Of course.”
“And he understood?”
“Bill, how on earth could anybody misunderstand a simple
thing like that?”
“Well, was he ever absent-minded? Could he have
forgotten?”
She shook her head. “No. And, anyway, the last thing
before he left that morning he promised to be very careful
because I was worried about his going alone. What is it
you’re trying to find?”
“Simply why he went to Redfield’s house that morning.”
She stared. “Do you think he did?”
“He must have. Wouldn’t you say that was where she and
Strader were?”
She frowned. “In her own home? In—?”
“Yes. In case you haven’t been able to grasp it yet, this
girl’s not the finicky type. I think that’s where they were,
and that’s where it happened.”
“But why?” she asked piteously.
“I don’t know,” I said. It made no sense at all except for
the fact the three of them had to come together somewhere
in that tragic fifteen minutes and he was the one who was in
motion, so he must have gone there. But then, even if he
had, why the killing? The situation might have the
ingredients for explosion, but only if she were utterly stupid
or insane. All she’d have to do would be to go to the door
and tell Langston her husband wasn’t home.
There had to be more to it. A lot more. There was another
man, to begin with. There was the acid job and the
deliberate attempt to drive Georgia Langston out of her
mind or break her health with those filthy phone calls. Why?
Talk of The Town— 141
Say that Cynthia Redfield had tried to frame her and had
failed—her only object would have been to throw suspicion
off herself, and she’d succeeded in that. Why keep lashing a
dead horse? Sadism? Was she a complete mental case?
“We’re just beating our brains out,” I said. “We’re going to
forget it for tonight. We’ll have dinner together and not
mention it once.” Then I remembered the way I looked.
“That is, if you don’t mind being seen in public with this
open-toed haircut, and bandage.”
“I don’t mind at all,” she replied with a smile that was only
a little forced.
* * *
Around six-thirty I shaved and put on the lighter weight of
the two suits I had. It was a San Francisco job, a gray
flannel, and still no prize in this heat. I examined the result
in the mirror, with the fresh white shirt and dark tie, and
decided I looked like a well-tended moose even if a little like
one that’d just walked into the props of a D.C.-7. Well, I
could wear the hat, and we might find a place with table
booths. The Steak House—that was it.
I went across to the office. She called from beyond the
curtained doorway that she’d be ready in just a moment. I
sat down in one of the bamboo chairs and thumbed idly
through a magazine. When she came out she was wearing a
very dark green dress, darker than avocado, that aided and
abetted the creamy pallor of her face and throat and the
mahogany highlights of her hair. She wore small gold earrings
like sea-shells, and a gold sea-horse pin, and nylons
and some very slender high heels.
I stood up. “Woof,” I said. “You can quote me.”
She gave an exaggerated curtsy. “Why, thank you.”
“You’re entirely too lovely to waste on the peasants,” I
said. “Why can’t we go to Miami Beach for dinner?”
She grinned. “No reason in the world. Except it’s a
thousand-mile round trip and I’m hungry.”
“Well, we could have breakfast before we start back.”
The gray eyes were cool and appraising, though there was
still humor in them. “Tell me, Bill, was that an honest
proposition, or are you still conducting an investigation?”
Talk of The Town— 142
“That’s not fair and you know it,” I said. “It was a perfectly
honorable pass, from the bottom of my heart. Futile, maybe,
but—Call it a gesture. Call it art appreciation.”
She laughed delightfully, and we went out to the car
feeling wonderful in a lightheaded sort of way, as if we’d
had two quick Martinis. It was a bubbly sort of moment, the
first one since I’d been here that was completely free of the
tensions and ugliness that bore down on her. It didn’t last,
however. I found a place to park on an intersecting street
around the corner from the restaurant, and we had to run
the gauntlet of hard, unfriendly eyes and blank stares,
moving in our own little corridor of silence along the walk.
When we were inside, people glanced up at us, and looked
away, without speaking to her. We found an empty table
near the back and sat down, and she still managed a smile.
I reached across the table and took hold of her hand.
“Don’t let it throw you,” I said. Then I realized how asinine it
was. She’d been taking it for seven months completely
alone, and now she needed my nickel’s worth of backing. “I
wish I had your poise,” I added.
She shook her head. “Don’t you dare go solemn on me.
Let’s have a Martini.”
We had a Martini and admired the polished steer horns on
the wall above us and wondered why they were never bull
horns or cow horns or ox horns. Would the day ever come
when horns would stand or fall on their own merits, without
sex?
“What is an oxen?” she asked.
“An oxen is two or more ox,” I replied.
She wrinkled up her nose at me. “Well, what are they? Are
they any different from steers?”
“Not in any really worthwhile way,” I said. “At least, from
the Freudian point of view. I think it’s only occupational. If
they worked, they were oxen.”
She propped her elbows on the table and looked at me
with mock admiration. “You know the most fascinating
things.”
“Oh, I used to have a piece of information even more
useless than that. If I can remember it I’ll tell you.”
Talk of The Town— 143
We regained most of the mood, and had a fine dinner. She
told me some more about herself. Her father had been a
flight captain back in the old days of the flying boats and
then later in the D.C.-4’s. She’d gone to Miami for a year
before starting nurses’ training. She’d been engaged once,
to a boy who’d gone off to Korea, and after waiting two
years learned she didn’t really want to marry him after he
returned. She liked medical lab work better than nursing,
but she didn’t think she would have wanted to be a doctor
even if she’d had the opportunity. Would she be glad to get
back to Miami when we were able to get the motel back on
its feet and sell it? She said yes, but that brought us back
too near the ugliness again, and we shied off.
I paid the bill and we went out and walked back to the car
past the eyes that were like nailheads in the wall of silence
around us. Only this time the silence was broken. There
were two of them leaning against the corner where we
turned. We were just past when one said, loudly enough to
be sure he was heard, “Well, I reckon all it takes is guts.”
In the quick, bright flare of anger, I turned and looked at
them, but then, even before she had time to pluck at my
sleeve, I remembered where the obligation lay. We went on,
and when we were a dozen yards away she whispered,
“Thanks, Bill.”
“I told you before,” I said, “I wish I had your poise. When I
get full, I blow up.”
I looked back as I was opening the car door for her, and
saw an odd thing. The big cop, Calhoun, was on the corner
in front of the two men. It was too far to hear, but he
appeared to be barking at them like a drill sergeant, and
then he caught one by the shirt and snatched him off the
wall as if he were a poster that had been imperfectly glued.
When he let go and jerked a thumb, the two of them went
across the street and disappeared.
I called her attention to it. She nodded. “I know. He’s done
that several times.”
I remembered the first afternoon, when I’d collided with
Frankie. “But still—”
“Yes. He always looks at me as if I didn’t really exist. But
he won’t tolerate anything like that. He’s a strange man,
Bill. I’ve never understood him.”
Talk of The Town— 144
I turned right into Springer and we started back to the
motel. We were just pulling away from the next traffic light
when I heard her gasp. “Bill, that man!” I glanced quickly
across the street in the direction she was pointing. There
were several men. “The one in the white shirt! With the
sleeves rolled up!”
I saw him then, but I was already at the cross-roads and
had to keep on straight ahead. He was walking in the
opposite direction, back the way we’d come. I turned left at
the next corner, made a figure-eight around the block, and
came back. We went all the way down Springer to the river,
but he was nowhere in sight. I tried a couple of the
intersecting streets, with no luck.
“Are you sure he was the one?” I asked. I’d had only a
brief glimpse of him, but he did fit the description she’d
given me that morning—tall, thin, sandy-haired, and
sunburned.
“I’m almost positive,” she said. Then she hesitated. “Of
course, I just had a flash of him. And I didn’t see any
glasses. Did you?”
“No,” I said. “But they could have been props the other
time.”
We drove around for another ten minutes, and then
parked for a time on Springer, watching the side-walks, but
it was no use. “I’m going to drive you home,” I said, “and
come back. He may be still in town, in a beer joint
somewhere.”
“You won’t do anything?” she asked anxiously.
“No,” I told her. “We can’t even have him picked up unless
you can give a positive identification. If he’s the wrong man,
he’ll sue you for false arrest. If I can locate him and pin him
down somewhere I’ll call you so you can have another look.”
I drove back to the motel. She unlocked the front door of
the office, and I called a cab. I gave her the car key, and we
went into the living-room. One bridge lamp was burning
dimly in a corner, striking faint light in her hair.
She turned, and the gray eyes were concerned as they
studied my face. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
“Sure,” I said.
Talk of The Town— 145
She smiled then, and held out her hands. “It’s been a
wonderful evening, Bill.”
I took the hint, and slid my hands up to take hold of her
arms just above the elbows, and put my lips down against
hers for a casual good-night kiss, but it got out of control.
The next thing I was holding her far too fiercely and
assaulting the sweetest and most exciting mouth in the
world, and her arms were tight around my neck. Then she
broke it up. She put her hands against my chest and pushed,
but it was herself she was talking to. “As you were,” she said
shakily, and stepped back, her face flushed and confused.
“Cigarette,” she said. She took an unsteady breath.
“It got away from me,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said laconically.
“How’s that?”
“For not pointing out it was both of us it got away from. Or
almost. It’s a little silly, isn’t it? I’ve known you for about
three days.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” I said. “My calendar and stop-watch are
in my other suit. All I know is I think you’re wonderful.”
She smiled. “It’s all right, Bill. I’ve never doubted you’re a
normal, healthy, thirty-year-old male. You don’t have to
prove it.”
“I don’t think I was trying to.”
“It was just a little frightening. I hadn’t realized before
that after a long enough time a girl might give way just for a
place to cry.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me. But you’ll never believe how
utterly damn sick you can get of being brave about
something. Or how tempting that shoulder has looked a
couple of times.”
“It’s available,” I said.
“Why?”
I put my hands on either side of her face and tilted it up
under mine. I just told you why. I think you’re magnificent.
You’re a very fine, sweet, warm-hearted woman, and you’re
full of tricks, like being a little more beautiful every time I
see you.”
Talk of The Town— 146
I kissed her, very gently this time, and looked down at the
fine dark tracery of lashes against her face. When she
opened her eyes they were misty, but she smiled “All right,
maybe I think you’re pretty nice, too,” she whispered. “And
now, Bill, will you please get out of here?”
”No good night?”
“We’ve already said good night. I’m just trying to keep it
airborne.” The gray eyes were dreamy, and large enough to
swim in. “Take your damned shoulder and get out of here.”
The taxi honked out front.
There’d been something I was going to do. I shuffled
through the rose-tinted chaos in my mind and came up with
it.
“Right, Georgia,” I said. I turned in the doorway. “If I find
him, I’ll phone.”
* * *
By the time we reached town I had the lipstick off my mouth
and the rest of her bulldozed far enough towards the outer
edges of my mind to be able to think rationally. The chances
were he wasn’t the acid thrower at all. It was a common
description. And he certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to
come back here. But I had to try. As flimsy as he was, he
was our only lead at the moment.
It was nine-thirty. I still had a good general idea of the
location of all the beer joints from the other day. I paid off
the cab and started making the rounds of them on foot. In
the first two I drew nothing except a few blank and
unfriendly stares, but at the third place I hit the jackpot. It
was a smoky but air-conditioned dive on the street south of
Springer, facing the railroad tracks. The instant I pushed
through the door, I saw him. There were six or seven men in
the place, but I spotted the white shirt about half-way down
the bar and caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. He
didn’t see me. I ignored him and strolled to an open space
near the front of the bar. There were a couple of pinball
machines along the left wall, and at the rear an empty phone
booth, and jukebox that was silent at the moment.
I considered swiftly. He had a half-empty bottle of beer
before him. The minute he ordered another, so I was sure
Talk of The Town— 147
he’d stick around, I’d duck into the phone booth, and call
her. We could park in front of the place till he emerged.
She’d be able to get a good view of his face, and once she
gave a positive identification, he was my boy. I thought of
the way that room had looked. Getting the police would be
no strain; he was going to need them by the time they got
there.
I’d paid no attention to the other customers when I came
in, but now it struck me all at once a strange and rather ugly
silence had fallen over the place. I looked around. On my left
was Frankie, the hard case who’d backed into me. Beyond
him was another familiar face with the same trouble-seeking
stare. It was one of the two loafers who’d made that remark
as we went back to the car. I didn’t know any of the others,
but they all had the same ugly expression. The bartender, a
fat man with a hearing aid, was shooting uneasy glances at
them.
Well, there wouldn’t be any stupid brawl. There were too
many of them, for one thing, and I had something much
more important to take care of. That was out.
“She give you the night off?” Frankie asked.
I hit him with a left, and put down the beer I was holding
in the right in time to take the next one just before he
recovered his balance from having Frankie bounce off him.
The third one, the loafer from the corner, was trying to claw
his way between them waving a beer bottle. I caught his
shirt and helped him through and hit him in the face as hard
as I could with a right at the same time. He took Frankie
back with him and they both slammed into the first pinball
machine and turned it over with an explosion of glass and
scattering of steel balls I across the floor.
Somebody must have dropped a coin in the jukebox, for it
erupted with a hot flood of sound above the ugly scuffling of
shoes and the meaty impact of fists and gasped curses and
hoarse and labored breathing. They were all over me. I
didn’t have a chance, but I couldn’t even feel the blows, if
any of them were landing. All I was conscious of was the
bright ocean of rage sloshing around inside me and faces
popping up like targets in a shooting gallery. They backed
me up against the bar with two of them riding my arms
while three more jockeyed and scuffled for position in front
Talk of The Town— 148
of me, trying to swing. There were so many they defeated
their own purpose; nobody could throw a solid punch. I
heaved forward, trying to break my arms loose, and we all
went to the floor in a flailing heap. I tried to fight my way up
through them, and then in the midst of chaos I became
vaguely aware of an odd phenomenon. They were
disappearing. There was no other way to describe it.
It was as if they were birds taking off in flight. I turned my
head and saw two solid, khaki-clad legs apparently growing
out of the floor. It was Calhoun. He was unpiling them and
throwing them behind him towards the rear of the bar,
methodically, effortlessly, like some huge and completely
noiseless machine. He yanked the last one off me and flung
him backwards and I pushed to my knees, still raging, and
saw Frankie hanging to the bar just beyond him. I shoved
him aside and lunged towards Frankie, and then the roof fell
on me. He caught me by the shoulder and spun me around,
and a hand like a picnic ham stiff-armed me in the chest. I
shot backwards and slammed up against the wall and slid
down beside the wreckage of the pinball machine. It was
like being hit by truck.
Talk of The Town— 149
13
“All right!” he barked. “That’s all!”
He was right as far as I was concerned. I felt sick. A large
section was torn out of the front of my shirt and dangled
from my belt. Both hands hurt, and blood ran down my face
from a cut over my right eye. I mopped at it. Something
dangled and flapped alongside my neck. I wondered whether
it was an ear, or merely a section of scalp. It was neither. It
was the gauze dressing the doctor had put on my head,
hanging by one strip of tape. I tore it loose and let it fall to
the floor. It was too heavy to throw.
All the others were lined up along the bar, eyeing Calhoun
uneasily. The bean-pole in the white shirt was gone, of
course; he’d be out of town by this time. Swinging at
Frankie had been a shrewd move; there was no doubt of it. I
was too weak even to curse myself. The jukebox quit and a
tense silence fell over the place.
“How much damage?” Calhoun asked the bartender.
The latter came nervously out from behind the bar and
looked around. “Uh—three stools—the pinball machine ain’t
mine, but I’ll have to pay for it—”
Calhoun stabbed with a forefinger, counting. “. . . Four,
five.” He swung around to me. “Six. Seventeen bucks
apiece. Shell out,” he ordered coldly.
Talk of The Town— 150
There wasn’t a murmur of protest. Wallets came out of
pockets and money began dropping on the bar. One man
was short by eleven dollars. Calhoun fixed him with a bleak
eye. “You got till noon tomorrow. He better have it by then.”
“Yes, sir.”
They were cowed. Well, I could understand that, I thought.
I’d seen a few really rugged men in my time, but Calhoun
was in a class by himself, a lumbering fat slob who was
around two hundred and sixty pounds of solid muscle and
moved like a cat when he was in action. “You too, Chatham,”
he said. He caught the front of my jacket and draped me on
the bar. I got my wallet out somehow and was counting the
money into his hand when the door flew open and Magruder
came charging in. He gave me a cold stare and grabbed me
roughly by the arm.
He nodded to Calhoun. “I’ll book this goon in.”
Calhoun put a forefinger against his chest. “Go home and
blow your nose, kid. I’m talking to one of the men.”
Magruder’s face darkened. “He’s a trouble-maker—“
“You’re inside the city limits, bub,” Calhoun told him
coldly. “When I need your help to keep order in this town I’ll
give you a call, huh? Now give the man back his arm.”
Magruder stared savagely at me, turned, and went out. I
leaned on the bar again, too sick to have much interest in
this jurisdictional squabble. I’d taken a lot of pounding in
the abdomen.
Calhoun jerked a thumb towards the door. “All right, you
guys, out! And I’d better not see any of you downtown again
tonight!”
I was conscious of surprise. He’d made us pay for the
damage, but he wasn’t going to arrest anybody. The others
went out past me, one or two giving me a surly stare. I noted
with satisfaction the loafer had an eye that was going to be
swollen shut in another ten minutes and Frankie had a
beautiful fat lip and swollen jaw. I pushed off the bar and
aimed myself at the door.
“Not you, Chatham,” Calhoun said. “You’re going with
me.”
Talk of The Town— 151
That added up, I thought bitterly. I was the stranger in
town; I’d have the book thrown at me. I stopped and leaned
wearily against the bar.
“Give this man a shot of whisky,” Calhoun said to the
bartender.
He put it on the bar. I gulped it and reached for my
pocket. Calhoun shook his head. “That one was on the
house. Let’s go.”
I followed him out, walking unsteadily, and we got into the
sedan parked in front of the place. He shot across Springer,
going north for two or three blocks, and then turned west. It
was odd, I thought dully; the jail and police station were in
the west end, near the river, all right, but south of Springer.
This was an older and rather shabby residential district,
not too well lighted. I didn’t know what he was up to and at
the moment I was too beat to ask. He could be looking for a
quiet place to work me over; if so, there wasn’t much I could
do about it.
He pulled to a stop under some big overhanging trees
near the end of the street. I could see the dark bulk of a twostory
house beyond the side-walk. We went through a gate
and up the walk, but he turned before going up on the porch
and we continued on round the side of the house. There
were more trees back here and it was quite dark. I could
feel mossy bricks under my feet. There was a guest house in
the backyard. He pushed open the door, which was
unlocked, and turned on a light.
It was apparently Calhoun’s residence, and there was no
need to ask whether he was married or not. A woman would
have taken one look and run screaming into the night. Not
that it was untidy; it was just the unrelieved and
overpowering masculine effect of it. There was one large
room, with a small kitchen beyond it and a doorway opening
into a bathroom on the left. The floor was concrete, bare
except for two small Indian rugs. His bed was a steel cot,
and the other furnishings were an old leather chair, a
straight chair, and a big table covered with hunting and
fishing magazines. On the walls were a number of
autographed pictures of fighters, a pair of boxing gloves, the
tanned skins of two enormous diamond-back rattlers, an
alligator skin, and two mounted bass that must have
Talk of The Town— 152
weighed at least ten pounds when they were caught. I saw a
case full of shotguns and rifles in one corner, and another on
the right side of the room held fishing rods. Two screened
windows were open, but there was no air-conditioner. It was
hot and still, and I could hear mosquitoes buzzing. I mopped
at the blood on my face to keep it from dripping onto the
floor.
“Sit down,” he said. I collapsed into one of the straight
chairs at the table. He went into the bathroom and came out
with a small metal box like a first-aid kit. Taking out some
gauze and a couple of medicated sticks like large styptic
pencils, he went to work deftly on the cut over my eye.
There was a sharp stinging sensation. He mopped again,
and grinned. “That does it. With twenty seconds to spare.”
“You used to be a pro?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Go wash up, and we’ll have some beer.”
I went into the bathroom and repaired as much of the
damage as I could. When I came out he handed me a can of
beer.
“Sit down, son, and get your breath.”
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but he probably was on
the other side of fifty. I remembered the way he’d slammed
me against that wall, like a thrown bundle of laundry, and
was glad he hadn’t done it when he was twenty-five.