The Expendable Man (11 page)

It was time to return to the grandparents' house, but he delayed. He was afraid, he admitted it, afraid to go outside. The fear was not now of the police but of a man without a face or name, a man who knew his face and name and where to find him.

He looked long at the phone. He didn't have to go back alone through the quiet, late afternoon side streets. He could call his sister's house; any one of a dozen cars would stop by for him. He had a good excuse, the wish to arrive for the wedding without passing through six or eight blocks of steam heat. He wouldn't let himself make the move toward the phone. He wouldn't give in to irrational fear. He turned off the air conditioner; the night's chill would have set in before he returned and he couldn't know but what he'd later need a warm room as he had last night. He could delay no longer. He took a last look at the television screen; it was advertising some children's remedy. He cut it off and was on his way.

It didn't seem so hot out now although the sun was still high above the horizon. In his white jacket, he was too visible. He wanted to cut and run but he made himself walk in normal fashion, paying no more attention to passing cars than he would have yesterday or the day before. If that one passed him again, he didn't recognize it. There were so many old dark sedans.

His spirits lifted when he reached the wide thoroughfare of Washington. Certainly nothing would happen here. It was a well-traveled street although there wasn't much traffic on a Sunday afternoon. He followed it to the side street which led over to the Jefferson house. On Jefferson he no longer had to fear. He joined the wedding guests making their way toward the house. He would be anonymous to strangers in the protection of the group.

Within the house, he took a place near the front door. He could step outside to meet them, if the detectives should come. Or if any uninvited guest intruded. But no strangers appeared.

The wedding was quiet perfection. His grandfather pronounced the beautiful old words. The women wept and the men swallowed hard when Clytie's luminous face was turned to meet John's unaccountably solemn one. The bridesmaids were a frieze of summer-leaf chiffon; among them Hugh saw Ellen's flower face only. He wondered how much she had figured out. There was only one big story in the papers and she was not a stupid girl.

Because the wedding was in the home, the guest list was small—the family and a few old friends. But the reception which followed seemed to include the entire community. There was no segregation with Clytie's university friends and John's Air Force crowd on hand. In a way Hugh wished that Ringle and Venner could have been looking in. They might realize that poor shoddy little Iris couldn't have been the outworn cliché of sexual interest to Hugh.

During the reception, he couldn't remain on guard. He had to mingle with family and friends. With his fingers crossed against intrusion, he had to pretend the joy the others were feeling. Grandmother's towering white cake was cut, the toasts lifted. Hugh limited himself to one champagne cup. He would take no chance on a muddled head tonight.

At six o'clock Clytie tossed the bride's bouquet from high on the flowered staircase. Whatever arrangements John had made for their departure worked. The guests began to drift away. And at last he was free to go, to lift his dangerous shadow from the family's happiness.

If it had been possible, he would have gone alone, silently as shadow. But when he glanced across the room, Ellen's questioning eyes were on him, waiting for his signal. He had committed himself when he asked her help last night; there was no way to eliminate her now. He had to fill in the background for her, despite his reluctance. It was as if he knew that once the story was told, nothing could be withdrawn. From that moment, there must be a relentless march to an inevitable end.

He circled to her side. “Whenever you're ready.” It was the first time he'd spoken to her since the beginning of the festivities.

“I'm ready.”

“We can skip the good-byes. We'll be seeing the family at the airport later. I'm driving them.”

She wasn't a girl who fussed. She retrieved an embroidered purse from somewhere and they left unnoticed among other departing guests.

In the car, he said, “We could go to my room at The Palms but I'd rather not.”

She understood. “Whatever you say.”

The only place where they could talk without danger of interruption would be a country lane. If the white car wasn't spotted—if he weren't being sought even now on a police call. He drove away, checking the mirror for a following car but there didn't seem to be any. At 24th Street he turned north as far as McDowell, then pointed east toward Scottsdale. The day's heat had softened, enough so in this before-twilight period, that the opened windows of the moving car gave an illusion of evening's cool. Raw green tract houses seemed to have taken over the countryside until they reached the cut. Here the troglodyte rocks and spire cactus were relics of what once had been.

The southern acres of Papago Park were unspoiled, although across the road the government area was newly scarred with a shiny wire fence. Had it been after dark, Hugh would have turned in at one of the sandy bypaths of Papago. But to park on the mesa was to induce attention; passing motorists couldn't fail to notice the big white car. He drove on to Scottsdale Road and turned north toward the village.

Until that moment it hadn't occurred to him that Scottsdale might be dangerous. Iris had been found in Scottsdale, not Phoenix. It was here the police might be watching for him. Or the anonymous man who had known the Scottsdale area well enough to choose a secluded section of the canal road to get rid of Iris. Having come this far, Hugh went on. He couldn't hope to hide, wherever he went. Phoenix and its environs hadn't grown that much.

He had remembered Scottsdale as surrounded by open country. He wasn't prepared for the startling growth the village had suffered, the gash of highway and the intricate, busy traffic pattern where little more than three years ago had been the quiet four corners. He turned off at Main Street and went north again at Miller Road, hoping that way might lead to what once had been. He was discouraged as he passed row after row of paint-clean doll houses.

“This was open fields the last time I was here,” he said ruefully, but as he went on he was all at once off the pavement and onto a country lane. He might have been miles from the village, there were fields and an old tree somnolent against the water of a tiny stream.

He did not stop the car, it was too close to the little houses he'd passed. He continued north to the end of the lane and blundered upon the canal road. For a moment he was blunted with shock. It was as if he had entered a maze from which there was no escape whichever way he chose to move. But reason returned. At least he had found a place where it would be safe to talk. Iris had not been murdered here but on the other side of Scottsdale. He drove on, turning to the right away from town, and following the narrow, dusty contours of the road, where the unperturbed water was banked high on the left and on the right were the empty saffron fields. There was scarcely width enough for two cars to pass but there were no other cars, and any approaching from the east could be seen from far off with the whirl of dust to give warning. He pulled up against the side of the road and cut the engine. If any cars came from behind, the rear-view mirror would warn.

He offered Ellen a cigarette, took one himself, and lighted them. He didn't know how to begin, he didn't want to begin.

She spoke before he could. “It's that girl, isn't it?”

He turned and looked into her face. There was no distaste in it, no pity. “I thought you might know.”

“What else would have brought the police last night? What else is there?”

He nodded slowly. What else? What else had happened here which could so affect him, a stranger in a strange town? It wasn't like Los Angeles or New York, where there were so many evil happenings.

She said, as if she'd made certain, “You had nothing to do with it but somehow you're involved.”

“That's right,” he said. “I'm afraid I'm involved.”

Almost disinterestedly she asked, “How did it happen?”

He had intended to tell it only in part, but to his surprise he found himself starting on the road to Indio when the jalopy had cut in front of him.

She listened without interruptions. The only thing he didn't tell was the old insults the kids in the jalopy had shrilled at him. Insulated as her life may have been, she still would have heard them too many times. Nor did he mention the car which might have been pacing him this afternoon. By now he was ashamed of having let his imagination trick him into shying at what must have had some everyday meaning, someone looking for a house number or someone early for a rendezvous with a friend. Everything else he told her.

Twilight came down and turned into early evening before he had finished. Together they'd smoked almost a pack of cigarettes. When his ran out, she'd brought hers from her handbag. He concluded unhappily, “And that's it.”

For a long moment she didn't speak and he wondered if he had quenched whatever spark of interest she might have had in him. By getting himself so stupidly involved in this affair.

And then she said, it wasn't a question, “You believe the girl was murdered.”

“Yes.” He was sure of it, as sure as if he'd done the autopsy himself and had proof. “She wouldn't have killed herself. She was too—tough.” He explained, “I'm not using the word in the slang sense.”

“I know.” She nodded. She looked across at him. “Murdered by an abortion.”

“Yes.” He was reluctant to admit it, as if the admission were further self-involvement.

“And because of the chain of circumstance, you have been picked as the sacrificial goat?” She smiled, but only to soften the implication.

Without hesitation he admitted this as well. “Yes.” He went on, “Of course I know I'm building it up. There's no reason why—”

She interrupted him. “There are many reasons why. You know them. I know them. I think you're in for real trouble, Hugh.”

He didn't say anything, he couldn't. His hand holding the cigarette was as if a chill wind moved it.

“You need a lawyer.”

“No.” He rejected it utterly, violently. “What could a lawyer do? I haven't been accused of anything. I haven't done anything.” He tried to make her see it. “Having a lawyer would make me look guilty. And I'm not.”

She smiled wryly. “Most lawyers prefer an innocent client.”

He tried to laugh. “The Judge's daughter.”

“Perhaps. I've grown up under the law. And perhaps it's that I've seen too many cases involving innocent people, our people.”

He said, “When I need one—if I need one—time enough then.”

Without agreeing with him, she accepted his refusal. She asked, “You haven't told your father anything about this?”

“I couldn't. Don't you see? The wedding—”

“You should tell them.” She was troubled. “You mustn't let them find out”—she hesitated, then concluded, but not what she'd been about to say—“another way.”

He said, “Nothing's going to happen until after the autopsy.” He'd convinced himself of this. “If the police had wanted a quick arrest, they could have held me last night when I identified her.” He wanted her to see it as he did. “If the autopsy proves she committed suicide, why put my family through all the agony of expecting the worst?”

“You know it isn't suicide, you've said that.”

“I know, but only the autopsy can prove it. By then they may have the right man—”

“Don't dream,” she said shortly. “You've also said they weren't interested in the unknown informant.”

He pleaded his case. “By now they must have talked to her father. He can tell them I never saw the girl until I gave her a ride.” Or could he, would he? Did the father know anything about Iris' private life?

Ellen said, almost impatiently, “They won't care who got her into trouble. All they'll want is the man, or woman, who committed an aborticide.”

She was right, but he argued, “The boy friend will know who that was. He'll know I had nothing to do with it.” And the fear was a knife in him. Because if the police looked for and found Iris' betrayer, that anonymous voice on the phone who must be the same, why would he be expected to tell the truth? He had given them Hugh.

Ellen didn't express her doubts. She only urged, “Tell your family, Hugh.”

But he knew he couldn't. Not until it became essential. He couldn't bear it that they too should be in a vise of fear. Suddenly he remembered the time. He switched on the dash lights and looked at his watch. “It's almost eight. We'd better go if I'm to get Dad and the girls to the airport for Flight 305.”

She knew he had rejected the idea. She protested no more, only said, “If I can help, Hugh, let me know.”

“You've already helped.” Like a child he touched her hand in gratefulness.

She smiled back at him but only with her lips. Her eyes remained somber.

The only turnaround was down a dusty bank into a field with a vertical pull up to the road again. The wheels made it. He drove back through Scottsdale and south toward his sister's home. They didn't talk on the drive. Only when they were nearing the house did he have a sudden, disastrous thought. “When are you leaving?”

She said, “I don't know. I think I'll stay on a few days and rest.”

“Aren't you in school?”

“I'm taking some courses, without credit. I can catch up. I wasn't returning for another week, anyway. I'm going first to visit some friends in Los Angeles.”

He couldn't have the arrogance to believe she was staying on here because of his troubles. But he said, trying to make it light, “I'm glad you'll be around for a few days. As long as I have to stay.”