In a Lonely Place (15 page)

”Yes, Dix.” Brub’s face showed sympathy. “See you soon.”

He watched Brub’s stocky figure roll away in the crowd. He shook his head, regretfully. Poor guy. Going around in circles trying to find an invisible man. Brub must be desperate if he were suspecting his best friend. Dix felt better. He rambled down Beverly Drive, shopping the windows as if he were one of the chattering females obstructing the walks. At Leonard’s he took a chance, turned in. The moment he’d decided to chance it, he felt right. The whole trouble with these past weeks was playing it safe; that was what love did to you, love and being stony; and the result, the megrims.

He walked in and he put it over smooth. Too bad he couldn’t get a suit out of it but he did well enough. Several jackets, navy flannel, white tweed, gabardine in tan, pinks was what it was called a couple of years ago; shirts, ties, a nice haul all wrapped up to be shipped to Rio. Dix Steele signing for it, he’d established that fact when he first moved into Mel’s. Dix Steele taking care of Mel’s affairs while Mel was in Rio. Maybe the credit was strained a bit but he brushed that off, first of the month, check coming any day now. And Mel wanting some of Leonard’s good stuff, Rio togs didn’t suit him. A dust of flattery and man-to-man and gab, and he’d mail the box himself as he was on his way to the post office. His car just around the corner.

He wished for the car as he lugged the heavy box down the street. He’d get the address label ripped off as soon as he got home, before Laurel snooped around and saw it. She might try writing Mel at Avenida de Perez, nice-sounding street. Letters could go astray. However, she might be anxious enough to cable. Not so good. Besides he’d said he hadn’t known Mel’s address.

He shifted the box. He should have had it delivered. But he wanted the navy flannel jacket for tonight, wanted to show her that the check was bigger than she thought it was. He shifted it again as he passed the Beverly Theatre. And he stopped. It was only four o’clock. Laurel didn’t ever return until six. nearer seven. There was a special showing of some big picture, hence there was continuous run. He hadn’t seen a picture in weeks. He went in.

It was after six when he came out. The street lamps were lighted in the early, hazy dark. He was a damn fool for walking, not bringing the car. There was no crosstown bus line that serviced his neighborhood. He had to walk it. carrying the awkward box. No taxis in sight.

It wasn’t far but his arms ached when he reached the dark apartment. Automatically he looked to the balcony, her apartment too was dark. He went in and lighted his. He wondered if she’d tried to call, to tell him she’d be late. Not tonight. After the wrangle of last night, she’d get home tonight. She’d go places with him. He took another shower, leaving the door open to listen for the phone.

He dressed elegantly, the gray flannels, the navy coat. He looked like a million dollars. And felt like it. Although it was past seven and she still hadn’t phoned. He was certain that she was coming, otherwise he’d have heard from her before now.

He went out and mixed himself a tall, comfortable highball. He stretched comfortably in the chair, took up the evening paper. Tonight he wasn’t going to get annoyed waiting for her. he felt good.

She didn’t come at all.

Discomfort wakened him. He’d fallen asleep in the chair, his legs were cramped, his neck was rigid. He turned off the lamp and the windows became gray. He didn’t care what time it was, he didn’t think about time. There was no reason to go again into the court, to gaze up at her apartment. He wouldn’t know if she were there or not. She hadn’t been there at four. Her lights wouldn’t be on now if she had slunk back like the alley cat she was.

She could wait. He was too foggy now to knock her wake and demand explanation. Even if foggy, he was smart. No one in the Virginibus Arms was going to remember him at Laurel Gray’s door.

He flung himself fully dressed on the bed. If he could sleep without taking anything, he would. He didn’t want to be put out, he must be alerted for the ringing of the telephone.

His sleep was sodden although much too brief. The gray of daylight was still pasty on the panes. He felt dirty and sick. The new flannel jacket was a sweaty mass. He peeled it off d hurled it to the floor. The best gray slacks were crumpled like an ocarina. He pulled off the heavy brogues that leaded his feet. They were good shoes: he’d bought them in England. When he had money and position. When the best was none too good for Colonel Steele. He rubbed his fist hard across his upper lip. No tears. He hadn’t the strength for tears.

He pulled off the slacks, left them where they fell. A shower would revive him, at least enough to put him on his feet for a few hours, until she came home.

He stayed under the gentle shower for a long time. The water was soothing, even the sound of it was soothing. He’d always, all of his life, loved the sound of breaking water. Nothing that had happened had changed that. The crawling of water over sand, the hush of a word
no . . . no . . . no . . .
not even that had changed his love of the power of the sea.

He put off shaving. His hands were trembling when he picked up the razor, he knew what the rasp of it would do to his nerves. Undo the good of the water. Yet he must shave. A man didn’t look like just any ordinary man unless he were clean-shaven.

It was almost six o’clock before he was dressed. In the protective coloring of tan gabardines, a white sports shirt. Too late to take the discarded clothes to the cleaners. He wadded them into a bundle and pushed them in the closet. It hurt him to see the navy-blue flannel jacket, the good-looking, high-style jacket, dumped there. He rubbed his lip again. He’d wear it yet, he’d wear it to the best places in town, the places where that kind of a jacket ought to be worn. He was through living in a hole; he was going places and doing things. Big places and big things.

He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. His head felt light as mist. No wonder, he hadn’t eaten since noon the day before, a couple of sandwiches then. He wasn’t hungry. His mouth tasted stale as the smoke of the cigarette. He didn’t want to go out into Mel’s kitchen, eat the old stuff that had been in the refrigerator for days. If only she would come.

There was no reason to believe that she wouldn’t come. Something she couldn’t foresee had happened last night. Maybe a job out of town. He hadn’t returned to the apartment until almost seven. She must have called him all afternoon, then had to leave without getting word to him. There was no way that she could leave a message. No possible way.

She’d return any minute now. She’d explain as she had the other time—and what had her explanation been? He’d explained to her but had she ever explained to him? She’d said it was none of his business. She’d talked about the big show she might land. But she hadn’t said where she was all night.

She’d meant to. And he’d meant to question her after he explained himself. But the conversation had channeled; they’d never returned to the subject. It didn’t mean that she hadn’t a simple and reasonable explanation, as she had the night when she’d been caught by her lawyer.

She’d come in pretty soon now. She’d be full of news about the show. There wouldn’t be any wrangle tonight; they’d talk it all over, make plans for New York. God, it would be good to be back in New York again! Where no one knew you; where there weren’t Nicolais parking on your doorstep. Brub was a great guy—the old Brub. But marriage changed a man. Being a cop changed a man.

The phone hadn’t rung all day. It wasn’t going to ring now, not while he stood here in the bedroom looking at it. There wasn’t any girl worth getting upset over. They were all alike, cheats, liars, whores. Even the pious ones were only waiting for a chance to cheat and lie and whore. He’d proved it. he’d proved it over and again. There wasn’t a decent one among them. There’d only been one decent one and she was dead. Brucie was dead.

Laurel couldn’t disappoint him. He’d known what she was the first time he’d looked at her. Known he couldn’t trust her, known she was a bitchy dame, cruel as her eyes and her taloned nails. Cruel as her cat body and her sullen tongue. Known he couldn’t hurt her and she couldn’t hurt him. Because neither of them gave a damn about anyone or anything except their own skins.

He was neither surprised nor disappointed that she hadn’t turned up. He’d expected it. He wasn’t going to fight with her when she came back; he was going to take her out and show her the town. Whatever she was. she was his. She was what he wanted.

He wouldn’t sit around any longer, yenning at the phone. He turned on his heel, half-expecting its ring to summon him back, and he went into the kitchen. The bread was dry. the cheese hard, but he put together a sandwich. His throat closed to the tasteless stuff; he was hungry, he needed a well-cooked dinner, something good to eat, served in style. He threw away most of the sandwich; he couldn’t stomach it.

It was after seven, way after, and she hadn’t come, hadn’t called. He wouldn’t wait around any longer. He was hungry. He strode through the living room and out the front door into the blue courtyard. There were no lights in her desolate apartment; she wasn’t there, she hadn’t been there.

Slowly he went back into his apartment. At the door he sprinted; he thought he heard the phone, but the ringing was only in his mind, the apartment was quiet as dust. She wasn’t coming. She hadn’t come last night and she wasn’t coming tonight. Only a fool, only a mawkish loon would hang around waiting for her to come.

This time he did quit the apartment, definitely, defiantly. Without leaving a note behind. The car was in the garage, he hadn’t had it out for two days, time it was moving again. The garage doors opened in smooth silence. He backed out the car, left the motor running while he closed the doors after him. Just in case he didn’t get back until late. Just in case his garage neighbors, not one of whom he’d laid eyes on, were the kind who’d wonder what a fellow was doing out so late.

He drove over to Wilshire, not knowing where he’d eat. The Savoy, on up Rodeo, Romanoff’s, the Tropics. He was after good food but he didn’t want to waste a lot of money on it. Not until Laurel went with him to those spots. There was always the Derby or Sheetz—not for tonight. Neither could fill the hollow within him.

He passed Judson’s, and the brilliant lights of the drive-in, Simon’s drive-in, glittered ahead. He thought only for a moment, a brilliant gash of thought that splintered his indecision. Quickly he slewed the car into the parking space.

It was a dare, a magnificent dare. He and he alone of those outside the case knew the police were watching Simon’s, knew the help was alerted for the face of an average young fellow. It was the kind of dare he needed, to return here openly, to take the chance. Knowing they were watching for a man of a certain height, of a certain look under the garish lights of the circular counter. They weren’t looking for a fellow in a big black coupe, shadowed in the twilight of a car. The same fellow and they couldn’t know.

Simon’s was always busy; even at this early hour cars were circled close in to the car hops’ pavement. There were a couple of holes and he pulled in boldly, cut his lights and waited for the hop. A middle-aged couple, a bleached blonde and a balding man, were in the car on his right. Two young fellows in the car on his left. He was certain neither was of the police. It would have amused him to smell cop. He was never more certain of himself than when he attacked. Cringing in corners alone was fearful. He was through with that stuff.

The girl who came with a menu and bright “Good evening” was young and pretty, as young as sixteen. Pert nose, blue eyes, long, light brown hair under her ugly brown cap.

He smiled at her. “Hello,” he said as if he’d been here often, as if he were one of the regulars. “I’m sure hungry tonight,” he told her before she went to service another car. He wanted to be noticed, wanted her to remember him as something usual.

Dust. Lochner and his dust. Dix would have plenty of Simon’s Drive-in dust in his car. He lived in the neighborhood; he could eat here often. Even the rich Mel Terriss ate here. Even Laurel Gray.

He wondered what name was on the identification card the girl had left on the outside of the windshield. He wasn’t foolish enough to investigate. But he hoped it was Gene, the girl who’d recognized Mildred from her picture in the paper. He wasn’t the same fellow.

She returned with her pad and he ordered steak, french fries, tomato-and-avocado salad, coffee. Cars pushed in and out on the lot. The late diners left and the first show crowd moved in. Constant motion, comings and goings, the counter men too busy to look up. the girl hops too busy running from car to counter to car to know whom they served. He was as safe as in a church.

The food was okay. He flicked the lights, ordered a chocolate shake for dessert. He wasn’t in any hurry. He’d give any and all of them a chance to look him over. He wished the police were here to look him over. But he didn’t go into the lighted building. He liked a chance but he was too smart for a risk.

No one paid any attention to him. When he drove out of the lot, no car followed. As soon as he was away from the lights, depression settled on him again. His hands itched to turn the wheel back towards the apartment. She might be there by now, waiting for him. He set the car forward. Let her wait. He’d waited enough for her.

He didn’t consciously plan to drive out Wilshire to the sea. But the car was set on its course and the road led to the dark, wet horizon. The fog blew in at Fourteenth Street and he should have turned back then. He didn’t. He went on, through the opaque cloud, until he had passed into the yellow spray that, falling into a pool, marked the Ocean Avenue intersection.

He knew then what he was going to do. He swung left and pulled in at the curb by the Palisades park. Out of the fog light glow, all things became an indistinguishable blur in the night. He left the car. The fog was cool and sweet as he drifted through it. Into the park, the benches, the trees assuming shape as he neared them. He walked to the stone balustrade. He could hear the boom of the breakers far below, he could smell the sea smell in the fog. There was no visibility, save for the yellow pools of fog light on the road below, and the suggested skyline of the beach houses. There was a soft fog-hung silence, broken only by the thump of the water and the far-off cry of the fog horn.

He drifted through the park on quiet feet, looking for the shape of a living thing, of a woman. But he was alone, the living were huddled behind closed doors, warming their fears of the night in the reassurance of lighted lamps. He came to the corner that jutted out over the cliffs, to the corner which was the beginning of the California Incline. He stood there quietly for a long time, waiting, remembering the night he had stood in the same place almost a month ago. The night he had pretended his hand was a plane swooping through the fog; the night he had seen the little brown girl. He waited, without allowing himself to know why. He kept his hands dug into his pockets, and he leaned over the edge of the balustrade, his back to the avenue. But no bus came to shatter the silence and the fog. There were not even cars abroad, not at this particular time and place.

He tired pretending after a time and he began to walk, down the Incline, past the mid-hump, pausing there to examine the beaten brush where, in the sunshine of the day, kids took the shortcut down the hill to the beach. It wasn’t a good cave, too small and shallow; it offered too little protection from the lights of cars traveling up or down on the Incline. Less protection from the beach road below. There were better places, places of seclusion, of quietness. He thought of the spiny trees in the eucalyptus grove, of the Winding road that dipped down into the canyon.

And he walked on. down the Incline to the pool of fog light at the intersection. He didn’t hesitate, crossing the deserted road to where the three houses huddled together in the night. He passed them slowly, as if reluctant to accept the closed gates, barring the intruders of the night. He went on to the open lot through which, in sunlight, the beach crowds passed over the broad sands to the sea beyond. He knew where he was going. He sludged through the sand until he stood in front of the third of the huddling houses. It was a tall peaked house, standing dark in the thick fog. He knew this was not the one. the brown girl had entered one of the two gates that stood side by side, the first or the second house.

He scraped through the damp sand to the center house, two stories, both pouring broad bands of light into the fog. There was warmth and gaiety within, through the downstairs window he could see young people gathered around a piano, their singing mocking the forces abroad on this cruel night. She was there, protected by happiness and song and the good. He was separated from her only by a sand yard and a dark fence, by a lighted window and by her protectors.

He stood there until he was trembling with pity and rage. Then he fled, but his flight was slow as flight in a dream, impeded by the deep sand and the blurring hands of the fog. He fled from the goodness of that home, and his hatred for Laurel throttled his brain. If she had come back to him. he would not be shut out, an outcast in a strange, cold world. He would have been safe in the bright warmth of her. He plowed on up the beach, to where there was no light, where the empty beach clubs loomed in the dark. Groping on, his feet chained in the sand, he stumbled and fell to one knee. He didn’t get up again, instead he slumped down there on the slope of a dune, and he buried his head in his arms.