The Thing in B-3

by Talmage Powell

  Pat planted his palms on the desk, leaning his weight forward on his extended arms. “You didn’t describe it that first time as a bargain basement number.”

  “No.” Bill shook his head. “It looked like a job from one of the better stores. But I know women’s clothing like I know the dark side of the moon.” “We’ve no choice but to trust your opinion,” Pat declared. He straightened and stood a moment knuckling his jaw. “We’ve got a couple tilings going for us. The number of upper-crust stores and shops narrows the job. Those shops usually stock only a few of the same model. They don’t load a rack with duplicates of expensive dresses. And, finally, shops of that type keep a pretty good record of their customers.”

  He continued speaking as he came around the desk. “We’ll divide up the stores and start digging, unless you can think of a better way.”

  “No,” Bill said, “I can’t. But the afternoon is gone, and the places we’re after don’t keep discount-store hours.”

  “So they all close before we get results,” Pat muttered with determination. “So we start out again tomorrow morning.”

  Bill fell in step beside Pat. Pat closed his office door, and they started down the corridor at a fast pace.

  “If B-three is just a trick of my eyes,” Bill remarked, “we’re going to look like a pair of fools.”

  They came out of the building into the crimson shades of a setting autumn sun. “If B-three isn’t a trick of your eyes,” Pat countered, “we’ll feel like a pair of happy fools—if we succeed.”

  Pat’s car was in the small area set aside for faculty members, adjacent to the building. As Pat drove toward the student parking lot and Bill’s car, he and Bill listed the stores and shops each would take.

  “Luck,” Pat said as Bill got out and moved toward his own car.

  Luck? The word returned to haunt Bill when the downtown stores began locking their doors and turning on their window display lights.

  Whoever invented the lousy word?

  He hadn’t eaten, but he wasn’t hungry. He could catch a delayed dinner at the hospital commissary. Right now, his stomach was too knotted with the hope that Pat had turned up positive results.

  Pat timed a call that almost coincided with Bill’s entry into the morgue.

  Bill crossed the reception room and picked up the phone in one quick movement.

  “Pat, Bill.”

  “Any luck?”

  “All bad.”

  “Ditto,” Bill said.

  “We’ll try tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” Bill said.

  He dropped the phone in its cradle in discouragement. What if the girl who’d bought the dress had left town? What if the salesgirl who’d sold it was out sick, had been fired, couldn’t remember?

  The sudden summons of the ambulance signal snapped the chain of what-ifs, at least for the moment.

  An hour later Bill and young Dr. Childers were rolling a birdlike, protesting elderly lady from the ambulance at the emergency entrance.

  “Young man,” she said vigorously from the stretcher, “I tell you I’m quite all rightl”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Barney said, sliding her through the swinging doors without a break in movement. “As soon as we X-ray the right shoulder and left ankle.”

  Bill returned to the ambulance and jockeyed it back into its slot. When he got out this time, he saw his father drifting across the emergency ramp.

  “Hi, Dad.” Bill grinned. “Not just passing, were you?”

  “No,” his father said frankly. “Just keeping an eye peeled in a fond direction.” He nodded toward the emergency entrance. “What was all that?”

  “Little old lady was returning a stepladder to her basement and took a tumble down the stairs.” Bill knew his father was using conversation as an excuse for an observant once-over.

  “She had been using the ladder,” Bill continued, “to get her kitty out of a small tree. The cat’s okay— but the basement floor was solid concrete. Her shoulder is smashed, though she isn’t feeling much of it right now.”

  They were walking toward the morgue, his father nodding now and then as if he had nothing more on his mind than Bill’s account of the ambulance run.

  “By the way,” the doctor said, “Victoria got that call today from Fortesque Fifth Avenue.”

  They paused at the front door of the morgue. “That’s really great!” Bill said. “That store will be her bag.”

  “They’ll be interviewing her the middle of next week. But she isn’t waiting around.” Dr. Latham smiled. “Said she was going to see a sight or two and soak up a little of the feel of the big city before she marched on the store. I imagine she’ll be like the well-known headless chick tomorrow with last-minute shopping and packing.”

  Bill looked at his father gravely. “Dad, nothing must spoil this for Vicky.”

  “We agreed on that, didn’t we?” Dr. Latham remarked. “Victoria mentioned your peaked looks during dinner, not more than an hour ago. I didn’t contradict her conclusion that you’re suffering nothing more serious than a twenty-four-hour bug.” Bill nodded. “Come on in, Dad, and I’ll loan you a mop.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve a hospital check on a couple of patients.”

  Bill watched his father turn and move away, a heavily striding shadow.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  His father stopped. Bill saw the pale oval of the doctor’s face turn toward him in the gloom.

  “Yes, Bill?”

  “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Looking in on me, before the other patients.”

  “Sure, Bill. But you weren’t my only reason.” “No?”

  “Me.” Dr. Latham stabbed a thumb at himself. “Need to ease my own mind. When I’m swimming in ignorance, I like to stay in hollering distance of the shore, if I can.”

  Bill watched the comer of the morgue wing swallow his father from sight. Then Bill opened the door and began an evening of routine that stretched to a dreaiy length.

  When it was time to clock out, he crossed the boneyard, curled his fingers about the handle of B-3, and broke the silence with the metallic, whisper-soft sound of the compartment’s opening.

  He wasn’t surprised to find her still there. He studied the dress for a few moments before he closed the drawer.

  That night he slept better than he had expected to, and when he came to breakfast the next morning, it struck him that the only outwardly visible abnormality in the Latham household was Vicky’s hardly containable excitement. She chattered about New York, the big store there, how much she had to do today.

  Bill followed her to the front door as she was leaving. He pressed ten dollars in her hand.

  “It isn’t much, but you see a Broadway show on me."

  “Oh, Bill, you sweet characterl”

  He thought for a second she was going to cry. They hugged each other and he said roughly, “You take good care of yourself, now.”

  “Like I am Bill Latham’s sisterl”

  “What time are you leaving?”

  She paused in the front doorway. “Haven’t got my reservation yet. I may end up a standby at the airport.”

  “Well, we’ll be talking on the phone when you get there, anyway.”

  “Sure. I’ll probably end up working to pay my toll calls.”

  When he left the house, his unfinished task crowded everything else from Bill’s mind.

  By ten o’clock he had talked with saleswomen at three stores. He kept his routine brief and simple, stating that he wanted to see a dress for someone who perhaps would like linen fabric in, say, yellow. He let the salespeople draw their own conclusions. One saleswoman surmised that he was a terribly young husband shopping for his wife. Another hinted that a gift certificate was always a good patch on a lovers quarrel; then the young lady could drop in and choose for herself.

  Bill talked with a beautifully groomed, middle-aged department head at the third store. When he had described the dress he had i
n mind, she said kindly, “We don’t have the number. But I can tell you where to find it.”

  The plush carpeting seemed to drop out from under Bill.

  “All spies aren’t the James Bond variety,” the woman was saying with a smile. “We shop our competition continually, and I saw the very dress you describe in Ann-Helen’s.”

  “Where is that?”

  “It’s a lovely little shop on Grantland, not far from the university campus. All the college women who can afford it adore the place, though I’m sure you men have never heard of it.”

  Bill took a groping step toward the elevator. “Young man, are you quite all right?”

  Bill glanced back at the frowning woman. “I am now—and thanks a million.”

  12

  A Yellow Dress

  ANN-HELEN’S was as quaintly casual as a village bam. Old-fashioned carnage lamps shed a soft glow. Coat and clothes cabinets were eaved with cedar shingles. A lacquered wagon wheel had been mounted on a short peeled log to do service as a display rack for belts. The chairs were converted barrels, beautifully varnished, bound in brass, and upholstered in leather.

  The small, select shop expressed the air that it existed for the sheer pleasure of its owner. It was obviously a one-woman operation.

  A bell tinkled softly when Bill entered, and a woman came forward to meet him. She was slender in a simple, unadorned black dress. About thirty-five, Bill guessed, with a gamine face, reddish hair, and a sprinkling of freckles across a snub nose. She wore little makeup. Her smile was airy, and Bill could have imagined her at a horse show as easily as here in this shop.

  “May I help you?”

  Bill introduced himself and described the dress. “Why, yes,” Ann-Helen said. She crossed to a cabinet. “Do you mean this one?”

  She lifted out the dress and draped it across her other forearm.

  The dress seemed to rush at Bill. The two small rhinestones at the collar were blinding points of fire.

  “Yes,” he croaked the word out. “That's the dress. Did you have many of them?”

  Ann-Helen accepted his question with a friendly, amused laugh. “No, just the two.”

  “You sold the other?”

  “Yes. Now, if you know the young lady's size....” “Do you remember who bought the other dress?” “Certainly. One of my regulars. A young college woman, Betty Atherton. She. . . .”

  Bill was backing to the door, fumbling behind him for the knob. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

  The proprietress watched him turn and dash out. Then she held the dress before her, shrugged, and slipped it back into the cabinet.

  From the middle of the sidewalk, Bill threw glances along the street. Ann-Helen’s was in keeping with the tone of the block. Book and artists’ supply store. Interior decorator. Beauty salon. A dealer in antique vases and clocks.

  And down on the comer, a drugstore. Bill broke into a run.

  A bank of phone booths lined a wall inside the front door. Bill ducked into the nearest, slammed the folding door, and fumbled change from his pocket.

  He dialed the Atherton residence. The cool voice of the butler responded.

  “This is Bill Latham.”

  “Yes, Mr. Latham?”

  “Miss Atherton wasn’t feeling well yesterday afternoon. Did she leave for school at the usual time this morning?”

  “No, Mr. Latham. She and her father left for the lake cottage an hour or so before dinner time yesterday.”

  The booth was suddenly a sweatbox. Bill tugged his collar with his finger. “Have you heard from them since their departure?”

  “Why, no, Mr. Latham. Is anything wrong?”

  Bill sleeved his forehead. “Did you see Miss Atherton leave?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Did you. . . Bill forced the words, distinctly, carefully separating each. “Did you notice what she was wearing when she left?”

  “I’m sure she looked very nice, Mr. Latham. She always does.”

  A vein thumped on the side of Bill’s neck. He fought back the urge to yell. “Was she wearing a yellow dress?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  With a strangled moan, Bill crashed the phone onto its hook. He clung to it, dropping his face against his forearm. His mind refused to yield the phone number of the lake cottage. Then at last he remembered.

  He straightened on the small round seat and steadied his breathing. He and Pat were to meet at eleven and add up their progress. But he could phone a message for Pat to sit tight. Meanwhile, assuming she’d reached the lake all right, Betty might even now be putting on that yellow dress to go for a drive.

  Bill’s quivering fingers dropped the coin he tried to put in the slot. He bent and picked up the money. The phone box swallowed it with a faint ting.

  He dialed and waited, his scalp shrinking a little each time the phone rang. Where was Betty? Mr. Atherton? At least the caretaker and his wife who lived in the servants’ quarters?

  Then Betty answered. Bill couldn’t reply at once. The words formed but wouldn’t come out.

  “Hello?” Betty repeated. “The Atherton cottage. Who’s calling?”

  “Betty. .. .”

  “Yes? Who is this?”

  “It’s me, Bill.”

  “Hi, Bill. We don’t seem to have a very good connection.”

  “Got a frog in my throat, I guess.” He cleared his throat. “How’s the headache?”

  “It went away okay. Bill, I’m glad you called. I haven’t felt right about coming up here. Seems like I ran out on you.”

  “Not a bit,” he said. “You forget that kind of stuff. Just do me a favor?”

  “Sure, if I can.”

  “Tell me what you’re wearing.”

  “What?”

  “Slacks? Dress?” He managed a laugh. “Burlap bag?”

  She worried for a silent moment. “Bill, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Are you sure you feel. .. .”

  “Please. Just trust me.”

  “Well, okay. Right now I’m in jeans and an old sweatshirt.”

  “Good. One more favor. I’m driving up there.” “Right now, Bill?”

  “As soon as I can crank the cayuse. And don’t change clothes. Do you understand? Not under any circumstances.”

  He faintly heard the catch of her breath on a note of fright. “Bill, the way you’re talking. . .

  “I know,” he said. “But please do as I say. Just mark it off to my romantical impulses. I’ve got to see you. Just as you are. In dungarees and baggy cotton.”

  The Atherton country place was a forty-minute drive northward. Bill had spent a couple of very pleasant Sunday afternoons up there at the close of the summer. He would lunch on hamburgers after church and drive up for lazy hours of swimming, fishing, boating with Betty, or just soaking up the sun on the strip of white beach Mr. Atherton had constructed with bulldozers and a mountain-load of sand.

  Today, as the road climbed gradually toward the ragged skyline of low mountains, the scenery might have been a pleasant experience. The sky was clear, the sun bright, the air bracing. But the brilliant autumn changes of colors in the foliage were today like psychedelic hues, rising, falling, shifting, and closing on the car. Long miles separated him from Betty.

  He swept through the village, a cluster of stores, filling station, souvenir stands, restaurant and roadhouse. Several of the places were already closed and boarded up against the teeth of approaching winter.

  The road skirted the lake, which lay as still and hushed today as a miles-long millpond. Then Bill was climbing again. The view widened to breathtaking scope, a vista of lake, coves, shadowed valleys, all sheltered by peaceful mountains.

  As the road hugged a fold in the mountain, Bill glimpsed the house, up ahead and to his left.

  Cottage, he thought, wasn’t quite the word for it. The large and luxurious Swiss-style chalet might have been lifted bodily from the Alps. From the terraced lawns, a man could loo
k upon the dizzying panorama of nature and feel dwarfed. The interior was a soothing sanctuary of hand-rubbed paneling, bearskin rugs, shaggy furniture with cushions of down, and vast fieldstone fireplaces where logs glowed and roman-candled tiny, crackling sparks during chilly evenings.

  Bill’s old fastback labored up the driveway in a lower gear. He saw Betty come to the railed front gallery in response to the sound of the car. The hard knot in his stomach gave a little. She was in jeans and the tentlike comfort of an old green sweatshirt. The yellow dress was still on its hanger. But he still hadn’t won, not a total victory. He was grimly certain that she’d never be safe as long as the dress existed.

  She came down the steps to meet him with her quick, lively movements.

  Her smile was bright. But from the way her eyes searched him, he knew she was worried about the way he had sounded on the phone.

  “Hi.” She linked her fingers with his as she fell in step beside him. With her other hand she stretched the tail of the sweatshirt in sloppy disarray. “Just as you ordered, sir.” She laughed. They were moving up the steps side by side. “But I didn’t know you thought the outfit so becoming.”

  “You’ve never looked better,” he assured her. They entered the cathedral-like silence of a living room with a beamed ceiling vaulted two stories overhead.

  “Now, what’s this all about, Bill?”

  “A dress.”

  “Dress? I don’t understand.”

  He wondered with a sudden misgiving if she could possibly understand it, even after he’d explained it.

  He drew her to a large couch near the raised fireplace. She obeyed the pressure of his fingers and sat down. She was edgy. Her back was stiff, and her eyes reflected her concern for him.

  He hadn’t seen her father’s car outside, but he wanted to be sure he could talk to her without any interruption.

  “Did your father drive into town?”

  She nodded. “One of those things came up at his office, like they always do. He got a phone call early this morning.” She tilted her head, looking up at him. “But you didn’t come here to talk to my father.”

  He eased down sidewise on the couch. “Betty, sometimes we have to do things on faith, the way a blind man crosses a street.”