Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(7)

All The Way — 139
After two weeks other sensations began to crowd it off the
front page, but it didn’t die entirely. Several things kept it
alive. One was the continuing search for the man who had
looted the car, and for Chapman’s body. Then there was the
concrete flamingo; that had caught the morbid public fancy.
But everybody had accepted it now, and we were safe. She’d
write, or call, and let me know where she was.
She didn’t. Another week went by. I was growing to hate the
apartment. Being away from her was bad enough but being
reminded of her every minute I was in the place made it
unbearable. And he was in it. I had the rug shampooed, and
all the time the men were working on it I wondered if I were
going as mad as Lady Macbeth.

Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(6)

The next morning I stopped at the office on the way out.
She was talking to the colored maid. When the maid left, I
asked quietly, after a glance behind me at the door, “Is there a
All The Way — 115
woman registered here who has real blue-black hair, worn in
a chignon ? A slender woman, in her thirties?”
“Why, no,” she said, puzzled. “Why?”
“I just wanted to be sure,” I said. “If she checks in, don’t tell
her I asked, but let me know right away.”
“Yes, of course,” she said uncertainly. “Could you give me
her name?”
“Oh, she won’t be using her right name,” I said. “She’s too
clever for that.”

Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(5)

All The Way — 92
There was no enjoyment in it. I kept thinking of his body
lying down there somewhere crushed under the tons of water.
We didn’t catch anything to speak of, which was good. I
wouldn’t have to fight off the photographers. I explained we’d
have to cut the first day short because I had an important
business call to make, and we were back at the dock at three.
That was two p.m., New Orleans time. I called from the
motel.
“Chris? Chapman. How are you making out with that
Warwick?”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Chapman,” he replied. “The fishing all
right?”

Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(4)

All The Way — 71
and then one more. The phone made a crashing noise, as if it
had struck the edge of the table, and I heard him fall.
Oh, you press the middle valve down. . . .
Something else fell. And then there was nothing but the
music, and a rhythmic tapping sound, as if the telephone
receiver was swinging gently back and forth, bumping the leg
of the table.
Bump . . . bump . . .
. . . and the music goes round and round . . . yoo-oo-ohoo. . .
.
* * *
I made it in a little over ten minutes. As soon as I’d got out in
the fresh air I was all right. She’d probably fainted, but she’d
come around. I parked a block away. The front door was
unlocked. I slipped inside and closed it.
One bridge lamp was burning in a corner, and the lights
were on in the kitchen. She wasn’t in here. I sighed with
relief. The phonograph had been shut off, and the phone was
back on its cradle. The apartment was completely silent
except for the humming of the air-conditioner. He was lying
face down beside the table which held the telephone. I
hurried through to the bedroom. She was in the bathroom,
standing with her hands braced on the sides of the wash
basin, looking at her face in the mirror. Apparently she’d
started to brush her teeth, for some reason, for the
toothbrush was lying in the basin where she’d dropped it. She
was very pale. I took her arm. She turned, stared at me
blankly, and then rubbed a hand across her face.
Comprehension returned to her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said.
There was no tremor in her voice.
I led her out and sat her on the bed, and knelt beside her.
“Just hold on for a few minutes, and we’ll be out of here. You
sit right there. Would you like a drink?”
“No,” she said. “I’d rather not.” She spoke precisely without
raising her voice. I had an impression it was nothing but iron
self-control, and that she was walking very carefully along the
edge of screaming. That part of it, however, I couldn’t help
her with.

Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(3)

All The Way — 47
She went into the bedroom. I started the tape, turned up
the volume, and walked up and down as I listened to it. The
bedroom door was open. I stepped inside. The blue pajamas
were tossed casually on the bed and she was beyond it with
her back turned, wearing only bra and pants as she stood
before the clothes closet. I looked at the long and exquisitely
slender legs, ever so faintly tanned below the line of her swim
suit and pure ivory above as they flowed into the triangular
wisp of undergarment about her hips.
She turned then. I must have taken a step towards her, for
she said crisply, “No, you don’t! Outside!” She meant it. She
took a slip from a drawer, and slid it over her head.
“I’m sorry, Teacher. But you’re a very exciting girl.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” She tugged the slip down. “I’m
irresistible to twenty-eight-year-old wolves. I’m female,
breathing, and within reach.”
“Thanks a million,” I said. “From both of us.”
“You’re welcome. Now get out there and get busy. And start
the tape over; you’ve missed part of it.”
“So you will give yourself that much?”
She waved a slender hand. “Out, Cyrano.”
All The Way — 48
Five
I shrugged, and went back to my study of Harris Chapman.
She came out after a while and left to get the sandwiches. I
looked after her. She could disturb a room by walking through
it, and leave it empty by walking out of it. I forced my
attention back to the tape. What was the matter with me,
anyway?

Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(2)

All The Way — 24
Three
When I awoke it was after eight. I groped for a cigarette, lit it,
and turned to look at her. She was sleeping quietly with the
dark hair like spilled ink across the pillow. She had the flat
stomach and narrow hips of a fashion model and rather small
breasts that were spread out and flattened as she lay on her
back. I looked at the slender patrician face with the long
lashes like soot against her skin; it was a willful face, I
thought, and it just escaped being bony, but the bones were
good. She was no pin-up, but she reminded me of something
very thin and expensive that was made before good
workmanship went out of style. I wondered what she wanted.
Her bag was on the dresser; it might tell me something, I
thought. I went over and opened it. A thin folder held eleven
$100 Express checks. I pulled out the wallet and checked her
driver’s license. What little she’d told me about herself
appeared to be the truth. Mrs. Marion Forsyth, it said, 714
Beauregard Drive, Thomaston, La. Hair, black. Eyes, blue, 5’-
7”. 112 pounds. Born 8 November, 1923. She’d be thirty-four
in a few days. This surprised me; I wouldn’t have thought she
was over twenty-nine or thirty. The wallet held about six
hundred dollars. I dropped it back in the bag.

Charles Williams-All The Way 1958(1)

One
I was talking sailfish with some man from Ohio when I noticed
her. I’d just lit a cigarette and had turned to drop the lighter
back in the pocket of the terry-cloth robe beside me. She was
off to the right and a little behind us, sitting cross-legged on a
large beach towel with her face lowered slightly over the book
spread open between her knees. At the moment she
registered merely as a pair of nice legs and a sleek dark head,
but after I’d looked away something about her began to
bother me.
“I thought I’d go nuts,” the Ohio man was saying. “This
damn sail must have trailed us a hundred yards. He’d come
up behind the bait and follow it like a kitten after a ball of
yarn—”
“They’ll do that sometimes,” I said. “Did the skipper try
slowing down, and speeding up?”
“Sure. Tried everything. But we never could coax a strike
out of him. Finally went down.”
I frowned, thinking of the girl, and turned to shoot another
glance at her. Somehow she seemed vaguely familiar, but that
still wasn’t it exactly. What the devil was it? Then I began to
catch on. The pose was phony. She wasn’t reading that book;
she was listening.