Hot Spot (13 page)

I sighed. “Over to the fire, like everybody else in town.”

“I mean exactly where were you? In back of the building? In front? Out in the street along the side? Where?”

“In front,” I said. “Where the fire-truck was.”

“Well, how do you account for the fact that out of over a hundred people I’ve talked to who were jammed around that fire truck, not one of ’em saw you? I mean, until nearly thirty minutes later, when you made a big show of yourself? Were you hiding behind something?”

“There was a building burning down,” I said. “It’s just possible they were looking at that.”

“All right,” he said. “We’ll disregard that for the moment. What I want to do right now is clear up a little point that’s been bothering me from the first. You were there, you say. Right by the fire-engine all the time. And we know you’re a hero, just aching to get in there and help. Tate’s already testified to that—how you grabbed the hose and made a grandstand play in front of the whole crowd, after the bank was robbed. Now what I’d like to find out—and the thing that’s going to interest the jury—is why you were so bashful about offering to help during the first few minutes, when you really could have done something.
You know what I mean, don’t you?
But sure you do. You were there. You admit it yourself.”

He paused, with a little smile around his mouth again, looking like a cat getting ready to pounce. I couldn’t do anything but wait for it and pray I’d have the answer.

“Now we know you were there. And that you were dying to help. All right.” He swung around and pointed the cigar at me and lashed out, “So what was holding you back when that woman became hysterical and started screaming that her little boy was missing and wanted somebody to go in the building and look for him? Why didn’t you step up? Were you afraid to go in there? Or you just hadn’t made up your mind to be a hero yet? Like hell! I’ll tell you why—
it was because you weren’t even there, and you know it.
Don’t you?”

I opened my mouth. And then I stopped. I could smell it. It was a trap. He’d left the door open too invitingly. But, I thought in an agony of indecision, what if I was wrong? If I said the wrong thing he had me nailed right to the cross. But I had to say something. I took a deep breath and plunged.

“Look,” I said. “I was there the whole time, and I didn’t even hear any hysterical woman.”

I could see it on his face before he wiped it off. I’d guessed it right. But how about the next one, and the one after that, and the one two days from now?

He’d just started to tear into me again when the telephone rang. He walked over and picked it up.

The room was very quiet. “Yes?” he said. “Speaking”—“Where?”—“Oh, sure. Sure”—“You’re certain of it?” He was staring at me, frowning. “You’re positive of that? And the time?”—”Yes—three blocks, it wouldn’t take any longer than that. No, in that case, there couldn’t be any doubt of it. All right. Thanks.” He hung up.

Suddenly, he looked tired. I waited, almost afraid to breathe. Who was it? What had he said? I wanted to jump up and shake it out of him. He looked at Tate and shook his head wearily, a baffled expression in his eyes.

“That was George Harshaw,” he said. “Calling from Galveston. He read about it in the papers. And he says Madox was definitely at the fire the whole time.”

Tate was puzzled, too. “Harshaw? I don’t remember seeing him there. I think I saw her—”

“That’s right. It wasn’t George that saw him. It was Mrs. Harshaw. She saw him drive up and get out of his car just as she got there. And it was less than five minutes after the fire broke out.”

T
HAT WAS ALL THERE WAS
to it. They had to let me go. I saw his face as he told Tate to give me a lift back to Lander and it had the expression of a mathematician who’d just seen it proved that two times three is five, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. If Dolores Harshaw had seen me there at the beginning he had no case, and he knew it.

“I’m sorry, Madox,” he said stiffly. “There wasn’t anything personal about it. I’d have picked up my own brother on the same evidence.”

“What the hell,” I said. “It’s a job, like selling cars. I’ll tell you one thing, though. If I ever go into the bank-robbing business, I’ll move out of your county.”

He stared at me thoughtfully. “Yeah. Do that, will you.”

Tate was silent as we drove back to Lander, and I didn’t feel like talking either. My mind was too numb to handle anything except the fact that I was free. It was dark by the time we got to town and Tate dropped me off at the rooming house.

I got out. “Thanks,” I said. “So long.”

“I’ll see you.” He lifted his hand and drove off.

I wanted to see Gloria Harper. I’d take a shower and change clothes, and then I’d call her. I’d take her to dinner at the restaurant. We’d go riding somewhere. I didn’t do any of it. When I got in the shower and the warm water hit me I began to dissolve like a cake of yeast. I hadn’t known how bad the pressure really was or how tight I’d been until it started to let go. The reaction unloaded on me, and I just made it into bed before I quit operating.

I awoke sometime before dawn and sat straight up in bed, staring. Who was free? Supposing for a minute that that Sheriff was naïve enough to buy something that easily, which he wasn’t—just what was Dolores Harshaw selling?

I was still his Number One boy as far as he was concerned, and if I dug up the money and tried to leave the country I’d be picked up before I got out of the state. Maybe he’d just pretended to believe her so I’d try it.

And that still left her. What did she want?

After a while I dressed and went downtown. Only a few people were on the street. The waitress did a double take when I came into the restaurant, and I knew a lot of people were going to be surprised to see me around here again. I ordered some breakfast, and stared at the Houston paper without seeing it.

Why had she done it? She’d said she had seen me there at the fire a few minutes after it broke out when she knew damned well she hadn’t; she also knew something else none of the rest of them did—that I’d been inside that building and knew what a firetrap it was. Maybe she had some ideas of her own. I gave it up and went out into the street. There was no use knocking myself out worrying about it; I had a hunch I’d be seeing her soon enough.

Gulick was opening the office. He seemed glad to see me.

“Did they find out who did it?” he asked awkwardly.

I went in and sat down on a desk where I could watch the loan office across the street. “No,” I said. “I don’t think so. They had some kind of pipe dream I was the one until we finally got it straightened out that I was at the fire.”

He fidgeted, looking down at his shoes. “I know,” he said unhappily. “They were here Saturday, asking about you. I told ’em just what happened as well as I could remember. I hope you don’t think I had any idea like that—”

“Of course not,” I said. “How was business?”

He looked a little more cheerful. “Good. The paper came out yesterday, with the ad. A lot of people have been in.”

“Excuse me,” I broke in. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She was coming along the sidewalk on the other side of the street, very fresh and lovely in the early morning sunlight. When she saw me crossing towards her she stopped, shyness and confusion and a very warm sort of happiness all mixed up in her face.

I came up and took her arm. She was still looking up at me. “Hello,” I said.

“Are you all right, Harry?” she asked eagerly. “I mean, is everything all right? I’ve been half crazy. Nobody knew anything, and I couldn’t find out anything.”

“It’s all right now,” I said. “It was just a mistake. We got it straightened out.” Somehow, the lies didn’t seem to matter. I wasn’t really lying, not about anything between the two of us. I was just protecting her from something she had no connection with and which would hurt her if she knew the truth.

“It was an awful thing for them to do,” she said, and suddenly her eyes were full of anger. I’d never seen her that way before. “Wait’ll I get hold of that Jim Tate. I’ll tell him what I think of him.”

“He wouldn’t mind,” I said. “Not if he could look at you while you’re telling him.”

“Well, I’d tell him anyway,” she said defiantly, and then all the vehemence went out of her and she was just confused and happy. “You’re teasing me.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not teasing you.” That terrific awareness of her began to get the best of me, and I wanted to take hold of her and kiss her so badly my arms hurt. She must have seen it in my face.

“Harry, I have to get to work!” she said hurriedly.

I walked with her up to the door. She unlocked it, and paused a moment in the doorway. “Sometime in the next year or so it’ll be five o’clock,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”

She smiled. “I think it could be arranged.”

Somehow the day wore on. The hours dragged, but never did come to a complete standstill. We were busy, which helped a little. About three o’clock I drove back on to the lot after a short ride with a farmer who wanted a demonstration, and saw her come out of the office across the street and start up the sidewalk. I stopped in the middle of my sales pitch when I saw who was with her. It was Sutton.

The farmer hemmed and hawed and reckoned he’d have to think it over a little more. “Sure,” I said impatiently. “O.K. O.K.” I could still see them. They were turning in at the drugstore. He finally shuffled off and I slammed the car door shut and started walking across the street after them.

They were sitting in a booth. She was facing the front, and as I came through the door I got a glimpse of her face before she saw me. It was unhappy and afraid and somehow defenceless, as if she had come to expect humiliation from Sutton and knew of no way to escape it. There was something beaten about it. When she looked up and saw me I could see her begging me to stay away.

I was in no mood to pay any attention to it. There was nothing in my mind now except Sutton. I pulled up a chair and sat down at the end of the table, glancing at her and then at him.

“Well,” I said, “a little business meeting?”

He nodded affably, and then he said, “Sure. Why don’t you sit down? Oh, I see you already have.”

“You don’t mind, do you?” I asked.

“Not at all.”

I leaned my arms on the table and looked at him. “You’re sure it’s all right? With you, I mean. You don’t have any objections?”

“Not a one, pal.”

“Well, that’s nice,” I said. “Isn’t it?” But I knew it wasn’t any use. Crowding him like that was just a waste of time. He was too much of the pro. He was pushing her around for what he could get out of it, and being jockeyed into a useless fight was only for suckers.

“Anything I could help with?” I asked.

“No-o, I don’t think so,” he said. Then he looked across at her and asked, with bland innocence, “Do you think there’s anything he could help with, honey?”

Her face was pale and you could see her fighting to keep from going all to pieces. I began to wonder if I was being very smart. I was blundering around in something I didn’t know anything about, and I began to have a feeling it was too deep to be cleared up by a kid stunt like slapping Sutton around, even if I could do it. She could only shake her head.

“Well, I’m sorry, pal,” he said with mock regret. “You see how it is. Maybe some other time, huh? We’ll give you a ring.”

“Please, Harry,” she said miserably, “it’s all right. It’s just a personal matter I have to talk over with Mr. Sutton.”

“O.K.,” I said. I shook my head and got up. There wasn’t anything else to do. I looked down at Sutton. “Sorry we couldn’t do any business.”

“Well, cheer up, pal. There’s days like that,” he said easily. “I’d cry, but it makes my mascara run.”

I went back to the lot. If she wouldn’t tell me what it was and didn’t want me mixed up in it, there was nothing I could do. I groused around the lot the rest of the afternoon. I already had an idea what it would be like when I picked her up at five o’clock, and it was. It was ruined. She was completely different when she had seen Sutton, or even when I mentioned him. She was tightened up and silent, and you could sense the desperate unhappiness tearing her up inside. We stopped on a little country road and I kissed her, but it wasn’t anything. She was somewhere else.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I hate to be such a wet blanket, Harry. And I was looking forward so to seeing you.”

I took her face in my hands as I had that night. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s have it.”

She just shook her head with an infinite weariness.

“Don’t you see?” I said. “You’ve got to tell me. How can I help you if I don’t know what it is?”

“There’s nothing you can do, Harry.”

“The hell there’s not. It’s Sutton, isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, and then she nodded slowly.

“Well, Sutton puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else. All he needs is for somebody to have a talk with him.”

“No,” she said desperately. “Don’t do it, Harry! Promise me you’ll stay away from him.”

“Why?”

“Because. You have to. You just have to,” she said pleadingly. “Just give me a little time. Don’t you see? It isn’t that I don’t want to tell you. I just can’t—not yet. It’s all so mixed up. I almost go crazy trying to decide what to do. It was bad enough before, but now—”

“But now what?” I asked, turning her face so she had to look at me.

“Now there’s you,” she said simply.

I kissed her and sat there holding her with the top of the blonde head just under my chin. Her face was pressed into my shirt and she was crying, quite silently. I thought of Sutton. If we had much more of this, something was going to happen to him.

We went to the movies Wednesday night, and she began to snap out of it a little. Neither of us had seen anything more of Sutton. She was very quiet, but she didn’t break down any more, and I just gave her time as she had asked me. I knew she was fighting it out with herself, and once or twice I had the feeling she was very near to telling me about it. She never did quite make it, but I left her alone. I knew that was what she wanted, and it was wonderful just being with her.