Leave Her to Hell (8 page)

“It’s a picture of some olive trees.”

“Is that what they are? I like them.”

“So do I. Maybe it’s a sign that we have an affinity or something.”

“It’s possible. I admit that you appeal to me in a peculiar way. Is it supposed to be a good picture?”

“It’s a bad print of a good picture. The original was painted by a Dutchman named Van Gogh. He was nuts. He cut off one of his own ears.”

“He must have been nuts in a nice way to have painted such trees.”

“Sure. In a nice way. The same way I’m ugly.”

“That’s right.” She looked at me briefly with her black eye. “Your room is interesting as a change, but it’s really a dump. Can’t you actually afford any better?”

“I sort of like it,” I said. “What can you expect from a guy who wears ready-made suits?”

“Aren’t you sometimes depressed by living here?”

“I’d be sometimes depressed no matter where I lived. You’re under no obligation to stay, incidentally, if you find it intolerable. As a matter of fact, you were under no obligation to come, and I wonder why you did.”

If she heard me, she gave no sign of it. Her eyes moved away from the cheap Van Gogh print and hung up on Jim Beam.

“Are you saving that for something special?”

“Sure,” I said. “For you.”

“Good. I’ll have some right now, if you don’t mind.”

“There’s no ice.”

“That’s all right. I’ll have it straight.” I got up and went into the bathroom and got a couple of tumblers off the back edge of the lavatory. I rinsed them in hot water and carried them back into the room. Opening Jim Beam, I poured about three ounces into both tumblers and handed one of them to Robin. She took a stout swallow and held her breath for a few seconds afterward and released the breath slowly. I sat down beside her again, almost brushing the nylon knees, and she lifted the tumbler until it was touching her sulky mouth and looked at me levelly over the rim. She was a tough and accomplished little charmer, all right, and I enjoyed playing the casual game we were playing together. But I was also bruised and worried, if not scared, and I thought it was probably getting time for business.

“Look, honey,” I said. “You’re smart, and you’re beautiful, and any man in his right mind would be tickled to death to have you break into his room any old time, and that’s what I am. I’m tickled to death. I’d like to believe that you did it because I’m a guy you just can’t resist. But I’m not, and you didn’t, so there’s no use wasting time on that one. Suppose you tell me the real reason in simple words, and I’ll listen and maybe understand. I might even believe you.”

Her petulant little mouth curved slowly and slyly in a smile that was reflected in her smoky eyes, and she leaned forward deliberately from the hips and put the mouth on mine, and it was soft and inciting and still smiling all the while. I didn’t retreat or advance or attempt to evade. For a few seconds I managed an overt passivity that was a covert lie, but a reasonable limit is placed on passivity by glands and such, and finally I reached for her and held her and felt in my hands the vibration of her body in its thin black sheath. Her mouth opened and stopped smiling. Her breath caught in her throat. She forgot her glass and spilled bourbon on the rug. After a while, with a pleased little mew, she leaned back in her corner and closed her eyes and began again smiling slyly.

“Maybe you underestimate yourself,” she said. “Maybe you’re a guy I just can’t resist.”

“Really? How do I compare with Regis Lawler?”

“Regis was a handsome heel. You’re an ugly touch. In time, I think, I could learn to like you better.”

“I know. It’s worth developing.”

“That’s it.” She opened her eyes and looked at me through the lashes. “I told you that, and you walked out on me. You hurt my feelings.”

“Sorry. I thought you were trifling with me. I’m a lad who doesn’t like being trifled with.”

“Sure. Poor and proud. We’ve been through that.”

“So we have. There’s something else we’ve been through too. Both of us. It happened right after the other time we got together, and it was painful. Do you suppose this little session will have the same result? I wouldn’t want it to become a habit.”

“Don’t worry. Silas was still in the office when I left, and Darcy was tailing you. No one knows where I went. Do you have a cigarette?”

I gave her one and lit it. She inhaled deeply and blew out a long thin plume through pursed lips.

“Did you know that Darcy was tailing you?” she said.

“That’s one of the reasons I came. To tell you that.”

“Thanks. If that’s true, aren’t you running quite a risk being here? It poses a problem.”

“I don’t think so. How could he have followed me if he was following you? Even Darcy can’t be two places at the same time.”

“I didn’t mean when you came. I meant when you leave. If he’s got the place under observation, how the hell do you expect to get away without being seen?”

“Oh, it isn’t likely that he’ll spend the night in the street. Once he’s certain you’re bedded down, he’ll probably go home and pick you up again tomorrow. However, I admit there’s an element of risk, and I’ve been thinking about it. In order to take no chance at all, I’ve decided to stay here until morning. If Darcy’s waiting outside then, he’ll follow you away when you leave, and I can leave later without any risk whatever.”

I drained my tumbler of Jim Beam and walked over for more. My legs felt rubbery, and there was in my head a peculiar lightness. It was not Jim that caused this. Nor bruises nor fatigue nor the cumulative effect of a long and difficult day. It was Robin who caused it. Her casual assumptions and propositions demanded quick and tricky adjustments, and she was, too frequently, too much in effect like a sharp inside belt to the belly.

“You seem to have thought this out very carefully,” I said.

“It didn’t require much thought,” she said. “To be honest, it’s something I want to do anyhow, so it worked out naturally.”

“You took it for granted, I suppose, that I’d be agreeable.”

“Do you object?”

“I’ve got an idea I’d be smart if I did, but I don’t. Maybe we owe it to each other. It’ll give us a good chance to find out if it’s worth developing.”

“That’s true. Anything worth developing will certainly develop now. Would you please pour a little more of that into my glass?”

I gave her more Jim and sat down again beside her. More of the nylon knees were showing than had shown before, and her short black hair had acquired a tousled look that may have been no more than a blur in my eyes. Her own eyes were warm and filled with smoke and an utterly amiable solicitation. I had a strong conviction that business would soon be waiting, and there was still before pleasure a point of business that I wanted to bring up. I took a drink and a deep breath and summoned endurance.

“Did you know that Regis Lawler took seventy-five grand out of the safe in Silas Lawler’s office the night he disappeared?” I asked.

Behind the haze of smoke in her eyes there was for an instant a brief bright flare of genuine surprise.

“Nuts,” she said. “Who told you?”

“Silas himself. Don’t you believe it?”

“No. It’s out of character. Not for Regis, but for Silas. Regis would have been capable, all right—the heel—but Silas would never have let him get away with it. He’d have hunted him down if it had meant never doing another thing for the rest of his life. Not just for the money, you understand. The loss of seventy-five grand wouldn’t mean too much to Silas. For the sake of his precious pride, the essential principle that no one on earth makes a sucker of Silas Lawler. Silas hasn’t been trying to find Regis, He hasn’t been trying because Regis is dead, and Silas knows he’s dead. He knows he’s dead because he killed him.”

“That’s your opinion. I remember your telling me. Why would Silas want to improvise a lie like that? What does it gain him?”

She swallowed some Jim and looked at me levelly while she held her breath and released it slowly in the little ritual of drinking straight. Her black head moved from side to side.

“Cut it out,” she said. “You’re ugly, but you’re not dumb. He did it to patch a hole in the fairy tale that Regis and Constance ran away together. It would take money to do something like that, and Regis didn’t have any. He had some kind of crazy scheme to make a bundle in a hurry, but it wasn’t to steal it from Silas, I’m sure of that. And I’m also sure that it never came to anything, whatever it was.”

“What kind of crazy scheme?”

“I don’t know. I said I didn’t. I only know that it was something that would have been very unpleasant to someone.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He was at my place one night. He was cocky drunk and talking a lot. He was different from Silas that way. Silas keeps a tight lip, but Regis always talked too much. He had a newspaper clipping folded into his wallet. He showed it to me and said that it was going to be worth a fortune to him, but I thought it was just Scotch talking, and I still think so. He had me in heat, damn him, but I knew he was a phony just the same.”

“What was the clipping about?”

“I didn’t read it all. Just the head. It was about some woman getting killed by a hit-and-run driver out in one of the counties.”

“Blackmail?”

“I got the idea.”

“Nice lovers you have, honey.”

“I told you he was a heel. Can a girl turn off her glands? Besides, as you see, I’m trying to do better.”

Standing abruptly, she walked over and set her glass on the table beside Jim Beam. Business, I felt, was finished for the night.

“Where do you sleep?” she said. “On a sofa? On the floor? Or do you stand yourself in a corner?”

“The bed’s in the wall,” I said. “It unfolds.”

“I had one of those once. It wasn’t very comfortable.”

“Neither is this one. The springs sag, and you roll toward the center from either side.”

“Really? It sounds interesting. Is that the bathroom there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll use it for a minute, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Use it for as many minutes as you wish. There’s a clean toothbrush in the cabinet above the lavatory.”

She went into the bathroom, and I had another short drink and heard water running. Pretty soon she came back carrying the black sheath and a couple of black trifles, and after that a lot of things happened in some kind of order, and somewhere in the order of things that happened, the bed got unfolded from the wall.

I awoke in the morning at the bottom of the slope on my side. Robin was still asleep at the bottom of the slope on hers. There was very little room between the slopes, and no room at all between us. Reluctantly and very gently, I removed myself and gathered clothes and went into the bathroom to dress. I shaved and dressed quickly, skipping a shower to avoid the noise, and then returned to the bedroom on my toes. The notion I had was to get out and away before she awakened, giving her and the night, in the day after, time to assume for each other their proper relationship. If the relationship was sick or sour or nothing much, then we could pretend, if we met again, that we were two other people. If it was better than that and good enough, we could take it, if we met, from where we were.

I might as well have saved the effort and the good intentions. When I came into the room, she was sitting up watching me. Her short black hair was a tousled mess, and her mouth was smeared, and her eyes were heavy with the dregs of sleep. She was, I mean, the loveliest woman in the world at that moment, except one.

“What time is it?” she said.

“Seven o’clock.”

“Don’t be absurd. No one wakes up at seven o’clock.”

“Lots of people do. Including me.”

“Whatever for?”

“It’s a nasty habit. It’s especially prevalent among poor men who wear ready-made suits and live in dumps.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes. To work.”

“What a dull thing to do under the circumstances. Come back to bed instead.”

So it wasn’t sour, and it wasn’t sick. How much it would amount to in the long run was a question, but at least it was worth repeating, and I wished I had the time. I went over and sat down on the bed beside her. The sheet that had covered her had slipped down to her hips, and she left it there.

“Do you want me to?” I said.

“Naturally. I said so, didn’t I? Do you need a written invitation?”

“No. I need a raincheck.”

“It’s not raining.”

“On me it is. Someone’s got me shut out in the wet, honey, and I’m beginning to feel the cold.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. I’m not sure myself.”

“Come off it, you big ugly chump. You spend the night with a girl in bed, and all of a sudden next morning you’ve got secrets. What’s more, you’ve got the nerve to ask for a raincheck. This is Robin, Horatio. You’ll have to do better.”

“I’m doing the best I can. It’s just that I’m playing this thing by ear.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to Amity.”

“Amity?” The surprise in her voice was immediate and real. “What the hell’s the idea in going to Amity?”

“No idea. It’s not that solid. It isn’t even as solid as a hunch. Call it an itch.”

“What’s itching?”

“Amity’s a place that keeps coming up. Constance Markley went to school there. Her best friend at the time was a girl who now has an arrangement with Graham Markley and wants Constance found. Silas Lawler makes trips there. You told me that yourself. All these things together make an itch.”

“It’s pretty weak. What do you expect to learn?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing. I told you it was just an itch. I’ll go to Amity to scratch it, and maybe then it’ll quit bothering me.”

She reached up and took my face in her hands and pulled it down to hers. Her lips under mine were warm and alive, and her tongue was quick and clever. My tensile strength was low and getting lower, and I was on the shaky verge of letting Amity and good intentions go to the devil for another day, but then the instant before I cracked she pushed me away and dropped her hands.

“Go on,” she said. “Go on to Amity.”

Gulping air, I stood up and got a bag from the closet. She sat quietly and whistled softly through her teeth while I packed the bag with a couple of clean shirts and a change or two of socks and shorts. At the door on the way out, I stopped and looked back at her, and she was still sitting there in the bed with her shoulders against the headboard and her black eye on the near side watching me from a corner.