Talk of The Town (4 page)

“No,” I said.

“But why?” she asked helplessly. “I don’t have much, but I would be glad to pay you anything within reason.”

“In the first place, it’s police work. And I’m not a policeman.”

“But private detectives—”

“Are licensed. And operating without a license can get you into plenty of trouble. And in the second place, just identifying him is pointless. The only way to stop him is a conviction that will send him to jail or have him committed to an asylum, and that means proof and an organization willing to prosecute. Which brings you right back to the police and the District Attorney. If they’re dragging their feet, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I see,” she said wearily. I detested myself for cutting the ground from under her this way. She was a hell of a lot of very fine and sensitive girl taking too much punishment, and I could feel her pulling at me. What she was showed all over her, if you believed in evidence at all. She had courage, and that thing called class, for lack of a better word, but they couldn’t keep her going for ever. She’d crack up. Then I wondered savagely why I was supposed to cry over her troubles. They were nothing to me, were they?

“Why don’t you sell out and leave?” I asked.

“No!” The vehemence of it surprised me. Then she went on, more calmly. “My husband put everything he had left into this place, and I have no intention of selling it at a sacrifice and running like a scared child.”

“Then why don’t you landscape it? It looks so desolate it drives people away.”

She stood up. “I know. But I simply don’t have the money.”

And I had, I thought, and it was the kind of thing I was perhaps subconsciously looking for, but I didn’t want to become involved with her. I didn’t want to become involved with anybody. Period.

She hesitated at the door. “Then you won’t even consider it?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t like the way she could get through to me, and I wanted to get her and her troubles off my back once and for all. “There’s only one way I could stop him if I did find him. Do you want to hire me to beat up an insane man?”

She flinched. “No. How awful—”

I went on roughly, interrupting her. “I’m not sure I could. I was suspended from the San Francisco Police Department for brutality, but at least the man I beat up there was sane. I would assume there is a difference, so let’s drop it.”

She frowned again, perplexed. “Brutality?”

“That’s right.”

She waited a minute for me to add something further, and when I didn’t, she said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Chatham,” and went out and closed the door.

I returned to studying the ceiling. It was no different from a lot of others I had inspected.

About six I called another cab and went into town. I ate a solitary dinner at the Steak House, bought some magazines, and walked back to the motel in the blue and dust-suspended haze of dusk. There were cars parked in front of only three of the rooms. I was lying on the bed reading about half an hour later when I heard another crunch to a stop on the gravel, and then after a few minutes the sound of voices raised in argument. Or at least, one of them was raised. It was a man’s. The other sounded as if it might be Mrs. Langston. It continued, and the man’s voice grew louder. I got up and looked out.

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.