Talk of the town Page 4

  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.”

  “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. 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?

  * * *

  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.

  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 wash-basin. “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.

  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.

  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.”

  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. 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 two-seater. 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.

  “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 n
umber? 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.”

  “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.