Talk of the town Read online

  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.”

  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 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 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 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, good-looking face with a lot of assurance in it, a cleft chin, green 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?”

  You asked for a cop and they sent you a comic-opera clown like this. I choked down a sarcastic remark that wouldn’t have helped the situation a great deal, and was just about to ask him where he wanted to start when he shrugged and said, “Well, that’s about it, huh?” He turned and went out.

  I stared at his back in disbelief, but followed him. I caught up with him on the porch. “What do you mean, that’s it?”

  He favored me with an indifferent glance and hitched up his gunbelt again. “I’ve seen it, haven’t I? I’ll make a report on it, but we haven’t got much to go on.”

  “How about checking this place for prints?” I asked. “Or don’t you want to? And how about the registration card he made out? And if you thought it wouldn’t bore you too much, I can give you a description of him. And the car. Any of that interest you? And what about those jugs in there?”

  “Well, what about the jugs? They had acid in ‘em. So I know that already.”

  I was beginning to get it now, though not the reason for it. Even this scenic and posturing hero wasn’t that stupid. He knew what you did with those jugs. You checked them for prints; you found out what kind of acid had been in them; then you found out where they’d been stolen from, and how, and went on from there. It was a deliberate goof-off.

  “Then you’re not interested? Is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “How do you get hold of the Sheriff of this County?” I asked. “Is there a password or something? I’ve tried the office twice—”

  “Try the Mayo Clinic,” he suggested. Then he added, “It’s in Minnesota.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But maybe somebody’s in charge while he’s gone?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Redfield.”

  “I see.”

  “You remember him; you talked to him on the phone.” He grinned. “He mentioned it.”

  “Sure,” I said. I remember him. That’s what puzzles me. He sounded like a cop.”

  He turned and stared coldly. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Did he tell you how to do this? Or did you figure it out yourself?”

  “He did tell me to find out who the hell you are,” he snapped. “Turn around and put your hands against that wall.”

  “Cut it out,” I said.

  “Turn around!”

  I sighed and put my hands against the wall. He shook me down for the gun he knew I didn’t have. Then he caught me by the shoulder and whirled me around facing him. and did it again. He managed to get an elbow under my chin a couple of times, pull my shirt tail out, and step on my feet, but as a rough frisk it was pretty crude Any rookie could have done better. Humiliation is the only object of it, anyway, and without an audience it’s pointless. He stepped back.

  “You through?” I asked.

  “You got any identification?”

  “It’s in my hip pocket. You’ve been over it three times.” “Give it here.”

  I took out the wallet, deliberately removed the money from it, and handed it to him. His face reddened. He shuffled through the identification.

  His eyes jerked up at me. “Cop, huh?”

  “I was one,” I said.

  “What are you doing around here?”

  “I’m going to wash the acid out of that room as soon as we finish this comedy routine.”

  “I mean, what’re you hanging around for? What have you got to do with this place? And Mrs. Langston?”

  “I’m staying here, while they fix my car.”

  “How come you’re working for her? Can’t you pay for your room?”

  “Let’s just say she’s a friend of mine. And I thought she needed help.”

  “A friend, huh? How long have you known her?”

  “A little less than a day.”

  He gave me a cold smile. “You sure make friends fast. Or maybe she does.”

  “Tell me something,” I said. “How does it happen she can’t get any police protection?”

  “Who said she couldn’t?”

  “Look around you.”

  “What do you expect us to do?” he asked. “Stay out here night and day because people don’t like her?”

  “Who doesn’t?” I asked. “If you’re supposed to be a cop, I’d think that would suggest something to you. It’s just possible the guy who dumped that acid in there didn’t like her.”

  “Round up half the people in town? Is that it?”

  “You know better than that. There’s not half a dozen people in any town that’d do a job like this.”

  I was wasting my breath. He turned away and stepped down onto the gravel. “Here’s your stuff,” he said, and tossed the wallet onto the concrete at my feet.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it. And there’s one more thing. If it was me, I’d be mighty careful who I got mixed up with around here. She’s going to have all the police attention she wants one of these days.”

  “Yes?” I said. I’d been wondering if he’d come out and say it. “Why?”

  “If you’ve been around here all day, you know why. She killed her husband.”

  “Then you don’t arrest people for that around here, and try them?” I asked. “You just let hoodlums burn their places down with acid?”

  “You arrest ‘em as soon as you’ve got a case,” he said. “You’re able to tell everybody how to run a police department, you ought to know that.”

  “Did you ever hear of slander?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Sure. And did you ever try to prove it wit
hout witnesses?”

  He went over and started to get into his car. “Wait a minute,” I said. He paused and turned.

  I reached down and picked up the wallet. “You wanted to see me do it, didn’t you? I wouldn’t want to spoil your whole day.”

  He stared coldly, but said nothing as he drove off.

  5

  I located the fuse box and killed the circuits in that wing of the building so I wouldn’t electrocute myself with the hose. Changing into swimming trunks, I went to work. I stood in the doorway playing the hose on walls and ceiling and furniture until water began running over the threshold. I broke open a half-dozen boxes of the soda and scattered it around and washed down some more. When I tried to move the bedclothes, curtains, and mattresses, they tore into rotten and mushy shreds, so I found some garden tools and raked them out onto the gravel, along with all the carpet I could tear up. It was sickening.

  Even as diluted as the stuff was now, it kept stinging my feet when I had to step off the boards. I played the hose on them to wash it off. In about fifteen minutes I had the worst of it out. I dragged the bed-frames and headboards, the chest, the two armchairs, and the night table out onto the concrete porch and played the hose on them some more and scattered the rest of the soda over the wet surfaces. I showered and changed back into my clothes, and went over to the office. Josie said Mrs. Langston was sleeping quietly. She brought me the keys to the station wagon.

  “Turn on the “No Vacancy” sign,” I said. “And if anybody comes in, tell him the place is closed.”

  She looked doubtful. “You reckon Miss Georgia goin’ to like that? She’s kind of pinched for money.”

  “I’ll square it with her,” I said. “She needs rest more than she needs money, and we’re going to see she gets it.”

  That wasn’t the only reason, but I saw no point in going into it now. I drove into town and parked near the garage. In the repair shed a mechanic was working on my car, unbolting the old radiator. He looked up and nodded.